Throughout our Nation's history, Congress has authorized agency adjudicators to fnd violations of statutory obligations and award civil penalties to the Government as an injured sovereign. The Constitution, this Court has said, does not require these civil-penalty claims belonging to the Government to be tried before a jury in federal district court. Congress can instead assign them to an agency for initial adjudication subject to judicial review. This Court has blessed that practice repeatedly, declaring it “the `settled judicial construction' ” all along; indeed, “ `from the beginning.' ” Atlas Roofng Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm'n, 430 U. S. 442, 460 (1977). Unsurprisingly, Congress has taken this Court's word at face value. It has enacted more than 200 statutes authorizing dozens of agenPage Proof Pending Publication cies to impose civil penalties for violations of statutory obligations. Congress had no reason to anticipate the chaos today's majority would unleash after all these years.
Today, for the very frst time, this Court holds that Congress violated the Constitution by authorizing a federal agency to adjudicate a statutory right that inheres in the Government in its sovereign capacity, also known as a public right. According to the majority, the Constitution requires the Government to seek civil penalties for federal-securities fraud before a jury in federal court. The nature of the remedy is, in the majority's view, virtually dispositive. That is plainly wrong. This Court has held, without exception, that Congress has broad latitude to create statutory obligations that entitle the Government to civil penalties, and then to assign their enforcement outside the regular courts of law where there are no juries.
Beyond the majority's legal errors, its ruling reveals a far more fundamental problem: this Court's repeated failure to appreciate that its decisions can threaten the separation of powers. Here, that threat comes from the Court's mistaken conclusion that Congress cannot assign a certain public- rights matter for initial adjudication to the Executive because it must come only to the Judiciary.
The majority today upends longstanding precedent and the established practice of its coequal partners in our tripartite system of Government. Because the Court fails to act as a neutral umpire when it rewrites established rules in the manner it does today, I respectfully dissent.
I
The story of this case is straightforward. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) investigated respondents George Jarkesy and his advisory frm Patriot28, LLC, for alleged violations of federal-securities laws in connection with the launch of two hedge funds.
In deciding how and where to enforce these laws, the SEC could have fled suit in federal court or adjudicated the matPage Proof Pending Publication ter in an administrative enforcement action subject to judicial review. See 15 U. S. C. §§ 77h–1, 77t, 78u, 78u–2, 78u–3, 80b–3, 80b–9. The SEC opted for the latter. In 2013, the SEC initiated an administrative enforcement action against respondents, alleging violations of the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. Specifcally, the SEC alleged that respondents falsely told brokers and investors that: (1) a prominent accounting frm would audit the hedge funds; (2) a prominent investment bank would serve as the funds' prime broker; and (3) one of the funds would invest 50% of its capital in certain life-insurance policies. In reality, the audit never took place, the bank never opened a prime brokerage account, and the hedge fund invested less than 20% of its capital in the life-insurance policies. In addition to misrepresenting the funds' investment strategies, respondents allegedly overvalued the funds' holdings to charge higher management fees.
The SEC assigned the action to one of its administrative law judges, who held an evidentiary hearing and issued a lengthy initial decision, concluding that respondents in fact had violated the three securities laws. The full Commission reviewed the initial decision and reached the same determination. The Commission also denied respondents' constitutional challenges to the order, including that the agency's in-house adjudication violated respondents' Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial in federal court. Ultimately, the SEC ordered respondents to pay a civil penalty of $300,000 and to cease and desist from violating the federal-securities laws. It also barred Jarkesy from doing certain things in the securities industry and ordered Patriot28 to disgorge $685,000 in illicit profts.
Respondents fled a petition for review in the Fifth Circuit. 34 F. 4th 446, 466 (2022). A divided panel granted the petition and vacated the SEC's order. The panel held, over the dissent of Judge Davis, that respondents were entitled to a jury trial in federal court under the Seventh Amendment Page Proof Pending Publication because the federal-securities antifraud provisions were similar to common-law fraud claims to which the jury-trial right would attach. See id., at 451–459. Because the SEC forced respondents to proceed within the agency, the Court of Appeals held that the SEC violated respondents' Seventh Amendment rights and thus vacated the SEC's order. Id., at 465–466.1 The majority affrms the Fifth Circuit's decision, notwithstanding the mountain of precedent against it. A faithful application of our precedent would have led, inexorably, to upholding the statutory scheme that Congress enacted for the SEC's in-house adjudication of federal-securities claims.
II
The majority did not need to break any new ground to resolve respondents' Seventh Amendment challenge. This Court's longstanding precedent and established government practice uniformly support the constitutionality of administrative schemes like the SEC's: agency adjudications of statutory claims for civil penalties brought by the Government in its sovereign capacity. See Part II–B (infra, at 173–180). In assessing the constitutionality of such adjudications, the political branches' “ `[l]ong settled and established practice,' ” which this Court has upheld and reaffrmed time and again, is entitled to “ `great weight.' ” Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U. S. 578, 592–593 (2020) (quoting The Pocket Veto Case, 279 U. S. 655, 689 (1929)); accord, Vidal v. Elster, 602 U. S. 286, 323 (2024) (Barrett, J., concurring in part); id., at 330 (So1As the majority notes, respondents also prevailed on two other constitutional challenges in the Court of Appeals. See ante, at 120. The divided panel concluded that: (1) the SEC's discretion to bring the case within the agency instead of federal court violated the nondelegation doctrine; and (2) a for-cause restriction on the Administrative Law Judge's removal violated Article II and the separation of powers. 34 F. 4th, at 459–465. I disagree with the ruling below on both points. Because the majority does not reach these issues, though, I address only the Seventh Amendment challenge discussed in the majority's opinion.
Page Proof Pending Publication Protection Bureau v. Community Financial Services Assn.
of America, Ltd., 601 U. S. 416, 442 (2024) (Kagan, J., concurring).
A
There are two key constitutional provisions at issue here. One is the Seventh Amendment, which “preserve[s]” the “right of trial by jury” in “Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars.” The other is Article III's Vesting Clause, which provides that the “judicial Power of the United States . . . shall be vested” in federal Article III courts. This case presents the familiar interplay between these two provisions.
Although this case involves a Seventh Amendment challenge, the principal question at issue is one rooted in Article III and the separation of powers. That is because, as the majority rightly acknowledges, the Seventh Amendment's jury-trial right “applies” only in “an Article III court.” Ante, at 120–121. That conclusion follows from both the text of the Constitution and this Court's precedents.
As to the text, the Amendment is limited to “Suits at common law.” That means two things. First, that the right applies only in judicial proceedings. The term “suit,” after all, refers to “the prosecution of some demand in a Court of justice,” Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 407 (1821) (Marshall, C. J.), or a “proceeding in a court of justice,” Weston v. City Council of Charleston, 2 Pet. 449, 464 (1829) (same) (“The modes of proceeding may be various, but if a right is litigated between parties in a court of justice, the proceeding by which the decision of the court is sought, is a suit”). Consistent with that understanding, this Court has held repeatedly that “the Seventh Amendment is not applicable to administrative proceedings.” Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412, 418, n. 4 (1987); accord, Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 454– 455; Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 195 (1974). Factfnding by a jury is “incompatible with the whole concept of adminisPage Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication trative adjudication,” which empowers executive offcials to fnd the relevant facts and apply the law to those facts like juries do in a courtroom. Pernell v. Southall Realty, 416 U. S. 363, 383 (1974) (collecting cases).
Second, the requirement that the “ `[s]ui[t]' ” must be one “ `at common law' ” means that the claim at issue must be “ `legal in nature.' ” Ante, at 122. So, whether a defendant is entitled to a jury under the Seventh Amendment depends on both the forum and the cause of action. If the claim is in an Article III proceeding, then the right to a jury attaches if the claim is “legal in nature” and the amount in controversy exceeds $20. Granfnanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33, 53 (1989); Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 454, n. 12, 461, n. 16. Yet when, as here, the claim proceeds in a non-Article III forum, the relevant question becomes whether “Congress properly assign[ed the] matter” for decision to that forum consistent with Article III and the separation of powers.
Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, 584 U. S. 325, 345 (2018). In other words, the question is whether Congress improperly bestowed federal judicial power on a non-Article III forum. See id., at 334 (Congress cannot “ `confer the Government's “judicial Power” on entities outside Article III' ” (quoting Stern v. Marshall, 564 U. S. 462, 484 (2011))).2 The conclusion that Congress properly assigned a matter to an agency for adjudication therefore necessarily “resolves [any] Seventh Amendment challenge.” Oil States, 584 U. S., 2Since the founding, Executive Branch offcials have adjudicated certain matters, while others have required resolution in an Article III court. An executive offcial properly vested with the authority to fnd facts, apply the law to those facts, and impose the consequences prescribed by law exercises executive power under Article II, not judicial power under Article III. See Arlington v. FCC, 569 U. S. 290, 305, n. 4 (2013) (explaining that agency rulemaking and adjudications may “take `legislative' and `judicial' forms, but they are exercises of—indeed, under our constitutional structure they must be exercises of—the `executive Power' ” (quoting Art. II, § 1, cl. 1)).
at 345 (explaining that if non-Article III adjudication is permissible, then “ `the Seventh Amendment poses no independent bar to the adjudication of that action by a nonjury fact- fnder' ” (quoting Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 53–54)); see W. Baude, Adjudication Outside Article III, 133 Harv. L. Rev. 1511, 1571 (2020) (“The Article III analysis should be conducted frst, on its own. And then . . . if the non-Article III adjudication is permissible, the Seventh Amendment should be ignored”). When executive power is at stake, Congress does not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment by authorizing a nonjury factfnder to adjudicate the dispute. So, the critical issue in this type of case is whether Congress can assign a particular matter to a non-Article III factfnder.
B
For more than a century and a half, this Court has answered that Article III question by pointing to the distinction between “private rights” and “public rights.” See Mur ray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How.
272, 284 (1856) (recognizing public-rights exception). The distinction is helpful because public rights always can be assigned outside of Article III. They “ `do not require judicial determination' ” under the Constitution, even if they “ `are susceptible of it.' ” Crowell v. Benson, 285 U. S. 22, 50 (1932) (quoting Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U. S. 438, 451 (1929)).
The majority says that aspects of the public-rights doctrine have been confusing. See ante, at 130–131. That might be true for cases involving wholly private disputes, but not for cases where the Government is a party.3 It has long been 3Every case that has expressed consternation about the precise contours of the public-rights doctrine, including those cited by the majority, involve only private disputes—or, more precisely, “disputes to which the Federal Government is not a party in its sovereign capacity.” Granfnanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33, 55, n. 10 (1989) (involving dispute between private parties in bankruptcy court); see ante, at 130–131 (citing Oil States Page Proof Pending Publication settled and undisputed that, at a minimum, a matter of public rights arises “between the government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments.” Crowell, 285 U. S., at 50; Oil States, 584 U. S., at 335 (describing the “Court's longstanding formulation of the public-rights doctrine”); accord, Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 51, and n. 8; Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 452, 457; Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U. S., at 451. Indeed, “from the time the doctrine of public rights was born, in 1856,” everyone understood that public rights “ `arise “between the government and others,” ' ” and refer to “rights of the pub- lic—that is, rights pertaining to claims brought by or against the United States.” Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 68–69 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); see ibid. (collecting sources). So, while this Court has recognized public rights in certain disputes between private parties, see infra, at 185–186, the doctrine's heartland consists of claims belonging to the Government.
When a claim belongs to the Government as sovereign, the Constitution permits Congress to enact new statutory obligations, prescribe consequences for the breach of those obligations, and then empower federal agencies to adjudicate such violations and impose the appropriate penalty. See Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 450–455 (collecting cases).4 This Energy Services, LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, 584 U. S. 325, 334 (2018) (involving patent dispute between private parties before the U. S. Patent and Trademark Offce); Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co., 473 U. S. 568, 575 (1985) (involving challenge to arbitration procedure for private parties disputing data compensation under federal pesticide registration program)); see also Stern v. Marshall, 564 U. S. 462, 469–470 (2011) (involving dispute between private parties in bankruptcy court); Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50, 56–57 (1982) (plurality opinion) (same).
4Judicial review of these agency decisions allows Congress to avoid any due process concerns that might arise from having executive offcials deprive someone of their property without review in an Article III Page Proof Pending Publication Court has repeatedly emphasized these unifying principles through an unbroken series of cases over almost 200 years. Start at the beginning, with Murray's Lessee in 1856. In that case, the Government issued a warrant to compel a federal customs collector to produce public funds that the Government determined the collector had unlawfully withheld.
See 18 How., at 274–275. The Government executed the warrant to seize and sell a plot of the collector's land to make up for the withheld funds. See id., at 274. In upholding the sale of the seized property, this Court concluded that the Government's in-house assessment and collection of taxes and penalties based on a federal offcial's adjudication of the facts did not violate Article III. The scheme was constitutional, the Court said, because “public rights” were at issue. Id., at 284. In other words, the dispute arose between the Government and the customs collector in connection with the court. See Atlas Roofng Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm'n, 430 U. S. 442, 455, n. 13 (1977) (“[T]hese cases do not present the question whether Congress may commit the adjudication of public rights and the imposition of fnes for their violation to an administrative agency without any sort of intervention by a court at any stage of the proceedings”); accord, Oil States, 584 U. S., at 344 (same); Tr. of Oral Arg. 29 (Principal Deputy Solicitor General) (stating that “the Court has emphasized that judicial review of agency action may well be required” and the Due Process Clause may “ha[ve] something to say” about that requirement). The concurrence reproaches this dissent for declining to address any potential defciencies in this administrative scheme, as well as failing to specify which forms of judicial review may be constitutionally required, see ante, at 162 (opinion of Gorsuch, J.), even though respondents did not raise any due process challenge in this case. Deciding whether this statutory scheme is procedurally defcient and so circumscribes judicial review that it violates due process would be inconsistent with the “settled principles of party presentation and adversarial testing.” Vidal v. Elster, 602 U. S. 286, 328 (2024) (Sotomayor, J., concurring in judgment) (citing Maslenjak v. United States, 582 U. S. 335, 354 (2017) (Gorsuch, J., joined by Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment)). Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication Government's exercise of its constitutional power to collect revenue. Congress could have brought such claims, if it wanted, “within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, as it may deem proper.” Ibid. The Court thus endorsed that constitutional balance: Congress could decide whether to assign a public-rights dispute to the Executive for initial adjudication subject to judicial review or to an Article III federal court for resolution.
Fast forward half a century. In Oceanic Steam Nav. Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U. S. 320, 338–340 (1909), the Court upheld a customs offcial's imposition of a penalty on a steamship company that violated immigration laws barring the entry of certain classes of people into the country. The customs offcial determined the facts, adjudicated the violation, and enforced the statutory prohibition on immigration through the assessment of a monetary penalty. See id., at 329. The Court noted the breadth of Congress's immigration power and held that the civil-penalty statutory scheme at issue was “beyond all question constitutional.” Id., at 342. Yet, far from restricting the public-rights doctrine to this particular exercise of congressional power or to specifc prerogatives, the Stranahan Court went out of its way to explain that the “settled judicial construction” that civil-penalty claims brought by the Government could be assigned to the Executive for initial adjudication extended “not only as to tariff but as to internal revenue, taxation and other subjects,” including the regulation of foreign commerce. Id., at 339; see also id., at 334–335.
Importantly, Stranahan rejected the “proposition” that, in “cases of penalty or punishment, . . . enforcement must depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil or criminal process.” Id., at 338. In words that could have been written in response to today's ruling, the Court explained that such a “proposition magnifes the judicial to the detriment of all other departments of the Government, disregards many previous adjudications of this court and ignores Page Proof Pending Publication practices often manifested and hitherto deemed to be free from any possible constitutional question.” Ibid. For that reason, the validity of legislation authorizing the non-Article III adjudication of civil-penalty claims does not turn on the Judiciary's assessment of whether it is necessary for executive offcials “to enforce designated penalties without resort to the courts.” Id., at 339. Whether or not such legislation violates Article III depends on whether Congress acted pursuant to a “grant of power made by the Constitution,” and not on whether it “relate[s] to subjects peculiarly within the authority of the legislative department of the Government” or on the circumstances that might have “caused Congress to exert a specifed power.” Id., at 339–340.
By the time Stranahan was decided, Congress already routinely “impose[d] appropriate obligations and sanction[ed] their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, giving to executive offcers the power to enforce such penalties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.” Id., at 339. Far from limiting the public-rights doctrine to the particular context in Stranahan and prior cases, this Court has expressly rejected the notion that the public-rights doctrine is so confned. See infra, at 184–185. This Court has repeatedly approved Congress's assignment of public rights to agencies in diverse areas of the law, refecting Congress's varied constitutional powers.5 A nonexhaustive list includes “interstate and foreign commerce, taxation, immigration, the public lands, public health, the facilities of the post offce, pensions and payments to veterans,” Crowell, 285 U. S., at 51, and n. 13 (collecting cases); see also, e.g., Helve- ring v. Mitchell, 303 U. S. 391, 401–404 (1938) (administrative penalty for underpayment of taxes); NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp., 301 U. S. 1, 22–24, 48–49 (1937) (re5The majority's fxation on this dissent's discussion of Stranahan, see ante, at 129, n. 1, misses the fact that Stranahan exists within a long line of cases recognizing the diverse areas of the law comprising the public- rights doctrine.
instatement of dismissed employee and backpay in adjudication of unfair-labor-practices claim under the National Labor Relations Act); Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U. S. 589, 591– 592 (1931) (defciency assessments for unpaid taxes); Lloyd Sabaudo Societa Anonima per Azioni v. Elting, 287 U. S. 329, 334–335 (1932) (fnes for violation of immigration law barring entry of certain classes of individuals); Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U. S., at 446–447, 451, 458 (adjudication of unfair-methods-of-competition and unfair-acts claims, and imposition of additional duties under customs law); Passa vant v. United States, 148 U. S. 214, 215–216, 220 (1893) (penalty for undervaluation of imported merchandise).
The list could go on and on. That is because, in every case where the Government has acted in its sovereign capacity to enforce a new statutory obligation through the administrative imposition of civil penalties or fnes, this Court, without exception, has sustained the statutory scheme authorizing that enforcement outside of Article III.
A unanimous Court made this exact point nearly half a century ago in Atlas Roofng. That was the last time this Court considered a public-rights case where the constitutionality of an in-house adjudication of statutory claims brought by the Government was at issue. That case presented the same question as this one: Whether the Seventh Amendment permits Congress to commit the adjudication of a new cause of action for civil penalties to an administrative agency. 430 U. S., at 444. The Court said it did.
In Atlas Roofng, the Court explained how Congress identifed a national problem, concluded that existing legal remedies were inadequate to address it, and then created a new statutory scheme that endorsed Executive in-house enforcement as a solution. Specifcally, Congress found “that work- related deaths and injuries had become a `drastic' national problem,” and that existing causes of action, including tort Page Proof Pending Publication actions for negligence and wrongful death, did not adequately “protect the employee population from death and injury due to unsafe working conditions.” Id., at 444–445. In response, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) to require employers “to avoid maintaining unsafe or unhealthy working conditions.” Id., at 445. OSHA in turn “empower[ed] the Secretary of Labor to promulgate health and safety standards,” and the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission to impose civil penalties on employers maintaining unsafe working conditions, regardless of whether any worker was in fact injured or killed. Id., at 445–446.
Two employers that had been assessed civil penalties for OSHA violations resulting in the death of employees challenged the constitutionality of the statute's enforcement procedures. They observed that “a suit in a federal court by the Government for civil penalties for violation of a statute is a suit for a money judgment[,] which is classically a suit at common law.” Id., at 449. Therefore, the employers claimed, the Seventh Amendment right to a jury attached and Congress could not assign the matter to an agency for resolution. See ibid.
This Court upheld OSHA's statutory scheme. It relied on the long history of public-rights cases endorsing Congress's now-settled practice of assigning the Government's rights to civil penalties for violations of a statutory obligation to in- house adjudication in the frst instance. See id., at 450–455. In light of this “history and our cases,” the Court concluded that, where Congress “create[s] a new cause of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law,” it is free to “plac[e] their enforcement in a tribunal supplying speedy and expert resolutions of the issues involved.” Id., at 460–461. “This is the case even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a jury where the adjudication of those rights is assigned to a federal court of law.” Id., at 455; see id., at 461, n. 16.
Page Proof Pending Publication The “new rule” and “legally unsound principle” that the majority accuses this dissent of “unfurl[ing]” today, ante, at 131, n. 2, is the one that this Court declared “ `settled judicial construction' . . . `from the beginning' ”: “[T]he Government could commit the enforcement of statutes and the imposition and collection of fnes . . . for administrative enforcement, without judicial trials,” even if the same action would have required a jury trial if committed to an Article III court. Atlas Roofing, 430 U. S., at 460 (collecting cases); accord, Elting, 287 U. S., at 334 (Congress “may lawfully impose appropriate obligations, sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, and invest in administrative offcials the power to impose and enforce them”); Stranahan, 214 U. S., at 339 (Congress may “impose appropriate obligations and sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties, giving to executive offcers the power to enforce such penalties without the necessity of invoking the judicial power”).
C
It should be obvious by now how this case should have been resolved under a faithful and straightforward application of Atlas Roofng and a long line of this Court's precedents. The constitutional question is indistinguishable.
The majority instead wishes away Atlas Roofng by burying it at the end of its opinion and minimizing the unbroken line of cases on which Atlas Roofng relied. That approach to precedent signifcantly undermines this Court's commitment to stare decisis and the rule of law.
This case may involve a different statute from Atlas Roofng, but the schemes are remarkably similar. Here, just as in Atlas Roofng, Congress identifed a problem; concluded that the existing remedies were inadequate; and enacted a new regulatory scheme as a solution. The problem was a lack of transparency and accountability in the securities market that contributed to the Great Depression of the 1930s. See ante, at 115. The inadequate remedies were the thenPage Proof Pending Publication existing state statutory and common-law fraud causes of action. The solution was a comprehensive federal scheme of securities regulation consisting of the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. See ante, at 115–116. In particular, Congress enacted these securities laws to ensure “full disclosure” and promote ethical business practices “in the securities industry,” SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bu reau, Inc., 375 U. S. 180, 186 (1963), as well as to “protect investors against manipulation of stock prices,” Ernst & Ernst v. Hochfelder, 425 U. S. 185, 195 (1976).
The prophylactic nature of the statutory regime also is virtually indistinguishable from the OSHA scheme at issue in Atlas Roofng. Among other things, these securities laws prohibit the misrepresentation or concealment of various material facts through the imposition of federal registration and disclosure requirements. See ante, at 116. Critically, federal-securities laws do not require proof of actual reliance on an investor's misrepresentations or that an “investor has actually suffered fnancial loss.” Ante, at 118; see also SEC v. Life Partners Holdings, Inc., 854 F. 3d 765, 779 (CA5 2017); SEC v. Blavin, 760 F. 2d 706, 711 (CA6 1985) (per curiam). OSHA too prohibits conduct that could, but does not necessarily, injure a private person. Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 445 (OSHA remedies “exis[t] whether or not an employee is actually injured or killed as a result of the [unsafe or unhealthy working] condition”). The employer's failure to maintain safe and healthy working conditions violates OSHA even if there is no actionable harm to an employee, just as a misrepresentation to investors in connection with the buying or selling of securities violates federal-securities law even if there is no actual injury to the investors.
Moreover, both here and in Atlas Roofng, Congress empowered the Government to institute administrative enforcement proceedings to adjudicate potential violations of federal law and impose civil penalties on a private party for those Page Proof Pending Publication violations, all while making the fnal agency decision subject to judicial review. In bringing a securities claim, the SEC seeks redress for a “violation” that “is committed against the United States rather than an aggrieved individual,” which “is why, for example, a securities-enforcement action may proceed even if victims do not support or are not parties to the prosecution.” Kokesh v. SEC, 581 U. S. 455, 463 (2017). Put differently, the SEC seeks to “ `remedy harm to the public at large' ” for violation of the Government's rights. Ibid. The Government likewise seeks to remedy a public harm when it enforces OSHA's prohibition of unsafe working conditions.
Ultimately, both cases arise between the Government and others in connection with the performance of the Government's constitutional functions, and involve the Government acting in its sovereign capacity to bring a statutory claim on behalf of the United States in order to vindicate the public interest. They both involve, as Atlas Roofng put it, “new cause[s] of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law.” 430 U. S., at 461. Neither Article III nor the Seventh Amendment prohibits Congress from assigning the enforcement of these new “Governmen[t] rights to civil penalties” to non-Article III adjudicators, and thus “supplying speedy and expert resolutions of the issues involved.” Id., at 450, 461. In a world where precedent means something, this should end the case. Yet here it does not.
III
The practice of assigning the Government's right to civil penalties for statutory violations to non-Article III adjudication had been so settled that it become an undisputable reality of how “our Government has actually worked.”
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 601 U. S., at 445 (Kagan, J., concurring). That is why the Court has had no cause to address this kind of constitutional challenge since its unanimous decision in Atlas Roofng. The majority takes a Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication wrecking ball to this settled law and stable government practice. To do so, it misreads this Court's precedents, ignores those that do not suit its thesis, and advances distinctions created from whole cloth.
The majority's treatment of the public-rights doctrine is not only incomplete, but is gerrymandered to produce today's result. See Part III–A (infra, at 183–187). Unable to explain that doctrine, the majority effectively ignores the Article III threshold question to focus instead on two Seventh Amendment cases: Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412 (1987), and Granfnanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33 (1989). Neither involved the in-house adjudication of statutory claims brought by the Government pursuant to its sovereign powers, which is the critical fact under this Court's precedent. See Part III–B–1 (infra, at 188–190) (discussing Tull); Part III–B–2 (infra, at 190–195) (discussing Granf nanciera). The majority and the concurrence then predictably fail to distinguish Atlas Roofng, which resolved the Seventh Amendment question for cases like this one implicating that critical fact. See Part III–C (infra, at 195–197).
A
To start, it is almost impossible to discern how the majority defnes a public right and whether its view of the doctrine is consistent with this Court's public-rights cases. The majority at times seems to limit the public-rights exception to areas of its own choosing. It points out, for example, that some public-rights cases involved the collection of revenue, customs law, and immigration law, see ante, at 128–130, and that Atlas Roofng involved OSHA and not “civil penalty suits for fraud,” ante, at 136.6 Other times, the majority highlights a particular practice predating the founding, such 6The majority also cites cases involving “relations with Indian tribes, the administration of public lands, and the granting of public benefts such as payments to veterans, pensions, and patent rights.” Ante, at 130 (citations omitted).
as the “unbroken tradition” in Murray's Lessee of executive officials issuing warrants of distress to collect revenue. Ante, at 128; see also ante, at 153 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). Needless to say, none of these explanations for the doctrine is satisfactory. What is the legal principle behind saying only these areas and no further? This Court has rejected that kind of arbitrary line-drawing in cases like Stranahan and Atlas Roofng. How does the requirement of a historical practice dating back to the founding, or “fow[ing] from centuries-old rules,” ante, at 131, account for the broad universe of public-rights cases in the United States Reports? The majority does not say.
The majority's only other theory fares no better. The majority seems to suggest that a common thread underlying these cases is that “the political branches had traditionally held exclusive power over th[ese] feld[s] and had exercised it.” Ante, at 130. To the extent the majority thinks this is a distinction, it fails for at least two reasons.
First, Atlas Roofng expressly rejected the argument that the public-rights doctrine is limited to particular exercises of congressional power. The employers in Atlas Roofng argued “that cases such as Murray's Lessee, Elting,[Strana han], Phillips, and Helvering all deal with the exercise of sovereign powers that are inherently in the exclusive domain of the Federal Government and critical to its very existence—the power over immigration, the importation of goods, and taxation.” 430 U. S., at 456. Cabining the cases in that way, the employers argued that “[t]he theory of those cases is inapplicable where the Government exercises other powers that [they] regard[ed] as less fundamental, less exclusive, and less vital to the existence of the Nation, such as the power to regulate commerce among the several States, the latter being the power Congress sought to exercise in enacting [OSHA].” Ibid. The Court rejected the employers' argument, explaining that nothing in those cases turned those particular exercises of the Government's authority.
Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication See id., at 456–457; cf. Crowell, 285 U. S., at 51 (offering a list of “[f]amiliar illustrations of . . . exercise[s]” of Congress's constitutional authority that have fallen within the public- rights exception to Article III).
Second, even if Atlas Roofng had not explicitly rejected the proposed distinction here, the majority cannot reconcile its restrictive view of the public-rights doctrine with Atlas Roofng and other precedents. For example, it is unclear how OSHA, or the National Labor Relations Act at issue in Jones & Laughlin, would ft the majority's view of the public-rights doctrine, or why the exercise of interstate- commerce power to enact those statutes would be any different from the exercise of that same power to enact the federal-securities laws at issue here. See Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 457 (“It is also apparent that Jones & Laughlin, Pernell, and Curtis are not amenable to the limitations suggested by [the employers]”).
The majority's description of the doctrine also fails to account for public rights that do not belong to the Federal Government in its sovereign capacity. See Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 54 (“[T]he Federal Government need not be a party for a case to revolve around `public rights' ”). This Court, after all, has rejected the confnement of public rights to that heartland. See ibid. (“[W]e [have] rejected the view that `a matter of public rights must at a minimum arise “between the government and others” ' ”). Conspicuously absent from the majority's discussion are, for example, cases in which this Court held that Congress could assign a private federally created action that was “closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme” for adjudication in a non-Article III forum. Thomas v. Union Carbide Agricultural Products Co., 473 U. S. 568, 594 (1985). These cases include, for example, an agency's adjudication of state-law counterclaims to an investor's federal action against its broker, Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 835–836, 847–850 (1986), and the arbitration of data-compensation disputes Page Proof Pending Publication among participants in the Environmental Protection Agency's pesticide registration scheme, Thomas, 473 U. S., at 571, 589–592. Both Thomas and Schor thus upheld the non-Article III adjudication of disputes between private parties, which naturally did not involve the Government in its sovereign capacity.
Even accepting the majority's public-rights-are-confusing defense, its “strategy for dealing with the confusion is not to offer a theory for rationalizing this body of law,” but to provide an incomplete and unprincipled account of the doctrine. Haaland v. Brackeen, 599 U. S. 255, 279 (2023). The majority references, but does not explain, “distinctions our cases have drawn,” ante, at 131, n. 2, also cherry-picking some cases and ignoring others. Indeed, in lieu of a coherent theory, all the majority has to offer is a list of fve “historic categories of adjudications [that] fall within the exception,” ante, at 128–130, and maybe (just maybe) OSHA, which the majority reluctantly adds to the mix at the end of its opinion for good measure, see ante, at 136–137. The majority ignores countless public-rights cases and entire strands of the doctrine, and fails to heed its own admonition that “close attention” must be paid “to the basis for each asserted application of the doctrine.” Ante, at 131.7 The majority also attacks a strawman when it asserts that “precedents foreclose th[e] argument” that the public-rights doctrine “applies whenever a statute increases governmental effciency.” Ante, at 140; see also ante, at 158–159 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). No one has made that argument in this case; not the Government and certainly not this dissent. The fact that certain rights might be susceptible to speedy and expert resolution through non-Article III adjudication is not what 7Among other things, the concurrence accuses this dissent of behaving like a “picky child at the dinner table.” Ante, at 160 (opinion of Gorsuch, J.). The precedents, though, speak for themselves. It is the majority and concurrence that pick and choose among public-rights cases, excluding broad strands of precedent constituting the doctrine.
Page Proof Pending Publication makes them “rights of the public—that is, rights pertaining to claims brought by or against the United States.” Gran fnanciera, 492 U. S., at 68–69 (opinion of Scalia, J.).
It is not clear what else, if anything, might qualify as a public right, or what is even left of the doctrine after today's opinion. Rather than recognize the long-settled principle that a statutory right belonging to the Government in its sovereign capacity falls within the public-rights exception to Article III, the majority opts for a “we know it when we see it” formulation. This Court's precedents and our coequal branches of Government deserve better.
B
Rather than relying on Atlas Roofng or the relevant public-rights cases, the majority instead purports to follow Tull and Granfnanciera. The former involved a suit in federal court and the latter involved a dispute between private parties. So, just like that, the majority ventures off on the wrong path. Indeed, as explained below, both the majority and the concurrence miss the critical distinction drawn in this Court's precedents between the non-Article III adjudication of public-rights matters involving the liability of one individual to another and those involving claims belonging to the Government in its sovereign capacity.
According to the majority, respondents are entitled to a jury trial in federal court because, as here, Tull involved a Government claim for civil penalties, and Granfnanciera looked to the common law to determine if a statutory cause of action was legal in nature. By focusing on the remedy in this case, and the perceived similarities between the statutory cause of action and a common-law analogue, the majority elides the critical distinction between those cases and this one: Whether Congress assigned the Government's sovereign rights to civil penalties to a non-Article III factfnder for adjudication.
The majority baffingly proclaims that “the remedy is all but dispositive” in this case, ante, at 123, ignoring that Atlas Roofng and countless precedents before it rejected that proposition. Not content to take just a page from the employers' challenge in Atlas Roofng, the majority has taken their whole brief, resuscitating yet another theory that this Court has long foreclosed. The employers in Atlas Roofng argued that the Seventh Amendment prohibited Congress from assigning to an agency the same remedy at issue here: civil penalties. See 430 U. S., at 450 (“Petitioners . . . claim that . . . assign[ing] the function of adjudicating the Government's rights to civil penalties for [a statutory] violation . . . deprive[s] a defendant of his Seventh Amendment jury right”). This Court rejected that argument outright, citing a long line of cases involving the Executive's adjudication of statutory claims for civil penalties brought by the Government in its sovereign capacity. Id., at 450–455 (collecting cases).
As discussed above, this Court has long endorsed statutory schemes authorizing agency adjudicators to fnd violations and award civil penalties to the Government.
See supra, at 175–178. Long before Atlas Roofng, this Court held that the Constitution permits Congress to enact statutory obligations and then “sanction their enforcement by reasonable money penalties” by government offcials “without the necessity of invoking the judicial power.” Stranahan, 214 U. S., at 339; see id., at 338–339 (collecting cases). That the SEC imposed civil penalties on respondents therefore has little, if any, bearing on the resolution of this case. Again, even if over a century of precedent did not foreclose the majority's argument, it fails on its own terms. The majority relies almost entirely on Tull, which held that statutory claims for civil penalties were “a type of remedy at common law” that entitled a defendant to a jury trial. 481 U. S., at 422; see id., at 425. Critically, however, the Tull Court's Page Proof Pending Publication analysis took place in an entirely different context: federal court. See ante, at 122 (“In [Tull], the Government sued a real estate developer for civil penalties [under the Clean Water Act] in federal court” (emphasis added)). Tull did not present the question at issue in Atlas Roofng and other cases involving non-Article III adjudication of Government claims in the frst instance. Rather, Tull stands for the unremarkable proposition that, when the Government sues an entity for civil penalties in federal district court, the Seventh Amendment entitles the defendant “to a jury trial to determine his liability on the legal claims.” 481 U. S., at 425. That conclusion says nothing about the constitutionality of the SEC's in-house adjudicative scheme. Atlas Roofng and its predecessors could not have been clearer on this point: Congress can assign the enforcement of a statutory obligation for in-house adjudication to executive offcials, “even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a jury where the adjudication of those rights is assigned to a federal court of law instead of an administrative agency.” 430 U. S., at 455. Although “the Government could commit the enforcement of statutes and the imposition and collection of fnes to the judiciary, in which event jury trial would be required,” the Government “could also validly opt for administrative enforcement, without judicial trials.” Id., at 460 (citing Stranahan, 214 U. S., at 339; Hepner v. United States, 213 U. S. 103 (1909); United States v. Regan, 232 U. S. 37 (1914); Helvering, 303 U. S., at 402–403; Crowell, 285 U. S., at 50– 51); Curtis, 415 U. S., at 195 (explaining that Congress can “entrust [the] enforcement of statutory rights to an administrative process . . . free from the strictures of the Seventh Amendment,” but must abide by the Amendment when it does so “in an ordinary civil action in the district courts”). It would have been quite remarkable for Tull, which involved a claim in federal court, to overrule silently more than a century of case law involving non-Article III adjudications of the Government's rights to civil penalties for statutory Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication violations. Of course, Tull did no such thing. Tull even reaffrmed Atlas Roofng by emphasizing that the Seventh Amendment depends on the forum, not just the remedy, because it “is not applicable to administrative proceedings.” 481 U. S., at 418, n. 4 (citing Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 454; Pernell, 416 U. S., at 383). For the majority to pretend otherwise is wishful thinking at best.
The majority next argues that the “close relationship” between the federal-securities laws and common-law fraud “confrms that this action is `legal in nature,' ” and entitles respondents to a jury trial. Ante, at 126. That argument does not fare any better than the argument on remedy.
Again, the majority bends inapposite case law to an illogical thesis. Granfnanciera, on which the majority relies to make its cause-of-action argument, set forth the public- rights analysis only for “disputes to which the Federal Government is not a party in its sovereign capacity.” 492 U. S., at 55, n. 10. For cases that, as here, involve the Government in its sovereign capacity, the Granfnanciera Court plainly stated that “Congress may fashion causes of action that are closely analogous to common-law claims and [still] place them beyond the ambit of the Seventh Amendment by assigning their resolution to a [non-Article III] forum in which jury trials are unavailable.” Id., at 52 (citing Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 450–461).8 8The majority leaves open the possibility that Granfnanciera might have overruled Atlas Roofing.
See ante, at 136. That suggestion strains credulity. By my count, Granfnanciera favorably cites to Atlas Roofng at least 12 times. See 492 U. S., at 48, 51–54, 57, 60–61; see also id., at 65 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). It even reaffrmed the defnition of public rights from Atlas Roofng, declaring that the Court “adhere[d] to that general teaching . . . in Atlas Roofng.” 492 U. S., at 51. The majority's only response is to say that Justice White thought Granfnanciera may have overruled Atlas Roofng. See ante, at 136, n. 3; see also ante, at 157 (Gorsuch, J., concurring). That The Court held in Granfnanciera that “a person who has not submitted a claim against a bankruptcy estate has a right to a jury trial when sued by the trustee in bankruptcy to recover an allegedly fraudulent monetary transfer.” 492 U. S., at 36. In doing so, the Court noted that actions to recover such transfers through a claim of fraudulent conveyance were traditionally available at common law. See id., at 43–49. That did not resolve the case, however. Unlike in Tull, the proceeding at issue in Granfnanciera was in a non- Article III forum (i. e., a bankruptcy court). So, to answer whether Congress could assign the fraudulent-conveyance claim to a bankruptcy judge for decision, Congress needed to decide whether the “legal cause of action involve[d] `public rights.' ” 492 U. S., at 53.
Granfnanciera explains that there are two ways to identify a “public right.” First, there are the matters in which Congress enacts a statutory cause of action that “inheres in, or lies against, the Federal Government in its sovereign capacity.” Ibid. (citing Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 458). These matters necessarily arise between the Government and the people in connection with the Government's exercise of its constitutional authority. See supra, at 173–174. In these cases, the Court said, Atlas Roofng controls the public-rights analysis. See Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 51, 53. The Court explained that “Congress may effectively sup- is misleading at best. When Justice White said in his Granfnanciera dissent that the Court's opinion in that case could be read as overruling or limiting portions of several cases, including Atlas Roofng, he was referring to his understanding that Atlas Roofng also extended to private disputes. See Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 79–83; see also Tr. of Oral Arg. 58–59 (Principal Deputy Solicitor General explaining that Justice White understood “Atlas Roofng to speak [also] to the private parties cases,” not just to cases involving the Government, which “is really a through line that the Court has never questioned”). With respect to claims involving the Government, such as those at issue here, Granfnan ciera expressly reaffrmed Atlas Roofng and “adhere[d] to [its] general teaching.” 492 U. S., at 51.
Page Proof Pending Publication plant a common-law cause of action carrying with it a right to a jury trial with a statutory cause of action shorn of a jury trial right if that statutory cause of action inheres in, or lies against, the Federal Government in its sovereign capacity.” Id., at 53 (citing Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 458).
The second kind of public right that Granfnanciera recognized involves “disputes to which the Federal Government is not a party in its sovereign capacity,” 492 U. S., at 55, n. 10, that is, usually “[w]holly private” disputes, id., at 51. The public-rights analysis in these private-dispute cases looks different: “The crucial question, in cases not involving the Federal Government, is whether `Congress, acting for a valid legislative purpose pursuant to its constitutional powers under Article I, has created a seemingly “private” right that is so closely integrated into a public regulatory scheme as to be a matter appropriate for agency resolution with limited involvement by the Article III judiciary.' ” Id., at 54 (quoting Thomas, 473 U. S., at 593–594; emphasis added; alterations omitted).
These two approaches together stand for the proposition that “[i]f a statutory right is not closely intertwined with a federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact, and if that right neither belongs to nor exists against the Federal Government, then it must be adjudicated by an Article III court.” 492 U. S., at 54–55 (emphasis added). Once in federal court, “[i]f the right is legal in nature, then it carries with it the Seventh Amendment's guarantee of a jury trial.” Id., at 55.
Because Granfnanciera did not involve a statutory right that belonged to the Government in its sovereign capacity, Atlas Roofng did not control the outcome. Instead, the Court applied the private-disputes test to determine whether fraudulent-conveyance “actions were `closely intertwined' with the bankruptcy regime.” Ante, at 133 (quoting Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 54). The Court held that the fraudulent-conveyance actions “were not inseparable from Page Proof Pending Publication the bankruptcy process,” and thus the public-rights exception did not apply. Ante, at 134 (citing Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 54, 56).
The majority brushes aside this critical distinction between Atlas Roofng and Granfnanciera in one sentence.
That “the Government is the party prosecuting this action,” the majority writes, is meaningless because this Court has “never held that the `presence of the United States as a proper party to the proceeding is . . . suffcient' by itself to trigger the exception.” Ante, at 135 (quoting Northern Pipeline Constr. Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co., 458 U. S. 50, 69, n. 23 (1982) (plurality opinion)). Here, too, the majority attacks a strawman. The SEC does not claim that the mere presence of the United States as a proper party necessarily means that a public right is at issue. See Reply Brief 8, n. 2 (disclaiming this argument).9 Of course “what matters is the substance” of the claim. Ante, at 134.
By no means, though, does this case involve a “purely taxonomic change.” Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 61. Congress did not just repackage a common-law claim under a new label. It created new statutory obligations and an entire federal scheme. See supra, at 180–181.10 Perhaps most im9Indeed, “the public-rights doctrine does not extend to any criminal matters, although the Government is a proper party.” Northern Pipeline Constr. Co., 458 U. S., at 70, n. 24 (plurality opinion) (citing United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11 (1955)). That is so not only because this Court has held as much, but also because Article III itself prescribes that “[t]he trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.” § 2, cl. 3. In other words, Article III requires criminal trials to take place before a jury in federal court, but says nothing about civil- penalty claims brought by the Government. Beyond criminal trials, the Solicitor General also concedes that, under this Court's precedents, the public-rights doctrine does not apply when the Government brings a common-law claim in a proprietary capacity. See Reply Brief 8, n. 2. 10The majority spills much ink on the perceived similarities between federal-securities fraud and common-law fraud, only to conclude that the causes of action are not identical. That conclusion was inevitable because of critical differences between the two. Even if Congress drew upon Page Proof Pending Publication portantly, Congress created a new right unknown to the common law that, unlike common-law fraud, belongs to the public and inheres in the Government in its sovereign capacity.
That is why, when the SEC seeks to enforce the federal- securities laws, it does so to remedy the harm to the United States. See supra, at 182. It seeks to protect the integrity of the securities market as a whole through the imposition of new and distinct remedies like civil penalties and orders barring violators from holding certain positions and performing certain activities in the industry. See 15 U. S. C. §§ 77h– 1(f), and (g), 78u–2, 78u–3(f).
For these reasons, “[a]n action brought by an Executive Branch agency to enforce federal securities laws is not the same as an action brought by one individual against another for monetary or injunctive relief of the sort that law courts (with juries) in England or the States have traditionally heard.” Brief for Professor John Golden et al. as Amici Cu riae 3. Congress did not unlawfully “siphon” a traditional legal action “away from an Article III court” when it enacted the federal-securities laws and provided for their enforcement within the SEC. Ante, at 135.
The majority asserts that “Granfnanciera effectively decides this case.” Ante, at 134. That can only be true, though, if one ignores what Granfnanciera actually says: Its public- rights analysis of whether an action is closely intertwined with a federal regulatory program only applies “in cases not common-law fraud when it enacted federal-securities laws, see ante, at 125–126, this Court has repeatedly disclaimed any suggestion that Congress federalized a common-law fraud claim. See, e. g., Stoneridge Invest ment Partners, LLC v. Scientifc-Atlanta, Inc., 552 U. S. 148, 162 (2008) (“Section 10(b) does not incorporate common-law fraud into federal law”); SEC v. Zandford, 535 U. S. 813, 820 (2002) (“[T]he statute must not be construed so broadly as to convert every common-law fraud that happens to involve securities into a violation of § 10(b)”); Herman & MacLean v. Huddleston, 459 U. S. 375, 388–389 (1983) (“[T]he antifraud provisions of the securities laws are not coextensive with common-law doctrines of fraud”).
Page Proof Pending Publication involving the Federal Government.” 492 U. S., at 54. The analysis from Atlas Roofng controls where, as here, “ `the Government is involved in its sovereign capacity under an otherwise valid statute.' ” 492 U. S., at 51 (quoting Atlas Roofng, 430 U. S., at 458).
C
Both cases relied on by the majority, Tull and Granfnan ciera, reaffrm that Atlas Roofng controls precisely in circumstances like the ones at issue in this case. That is why the majority's late-stage attempt to distinguish Atlas Roofng fails. The majority's principal argument that the OSHA scheme in Atlas Roofng “did not borrow its cause of action from the common law” and was instead a “selfconsciously novel” scheme that “resembled a detailed building code,” ante, at 136–137, is fawed on multiple fronts.
First, OSHA's cause of action should be largely irrelevant under the majority's view that the remedy of civil penalties is effectively dispositive under Tull. Atlas Roofng, and many other cases involving non-Article III adjudications, also involved civil penalties designed to punish and deter, and yet the majority does not expressly disavow them.
Logically, then, either Atlas Roofng and countless other cases were wrongly decided, or the majority's view on civil penalties is wrong.
Second, because the majority elides the critical distinction between Atlas Roofng and Granfnanciera, it fails to grapple with the fact that this case, like Atlas Roofng and unlike Granfnanciera, involves the Government acting in its sovereign capacity to enforce a statutory violation. That makes the right at issue a “public right” that Congress can take outside the purview of Article III, even when the new cause of action is analogous to a common-law claim.
Third, the relationship between the federal-securities laws (including their antifraud provisions) and common-law fraud is materially indistinguishable from the relationship between OSHA and the common-law torts of wrongful death and Page Proof Pending Publication Page Proof Pending Publication negligence. Unlike their common-law comparators, neither statute requires actionable harm to an individual. See supra, at 181. In arguing that OSHA's scheme was “selfconsciously” novel in ways unknown to the common law, the majority points to the granularity of OSHA standards. Ante, at 137. Yet lawyers and regulated parties in the securities industry would be surprised to hear that this could be a distinguishing feature. Anyone familiar with the industry knows securities laws are replete with specifc and exceedingly detailed requirements implementing the statute's disclosure and antifraud provisions.
See, e. g., 17 CFR § 275.206(4)–1(b) (2023) (prohibiting testimonials and endorsements that do not satisfy requirements without meeting complex disclosure requirements); § 275.206(4)–2(a) (prohibiting investment advisers from having custody of client funds or securities unless specifc requirements are met, including qualifcations, notices, and account statements).
The majority further rests on the notion that Congress drew inspiration from the common law in enacting the anti- fraud provisions of the federal-securities laws, whereas OSHA's new statutory duty did not bring any common-law soil with it. See ante, at 136–137. Yet both statutes share elements with claims at common law that Congress deemed inadequate to address the national problems that prompted it to legislate. See supra, at 180–181. Still, even accepting that federal-securities laws bring common-law soil with them and OSHA does not, the majority does not explain why that is a constitutionally relevant distinction.11 In sum, all avenues by which the majority attempts to distinguish Atlas Roofng fail. The majority cannot escape the 11In Tull v. United States, 481 U. S. 412 (1987), for example, there was no common-law soil brought into that federal regulatory regime, and the Seventh Amendment still applied. Indeed, no one can argue that “[t]he purpose of [the Clean Water Act] was . . . to enable the Federal Government to bring or adjudicate claims that traced their ancestry to the common law.” Ante, at 137.
entrenched principle that a “legal cause of action involves `public rights' ” that can be taken outside of Article III if the “statutory right is . . . closely intertwined with a federal regulatory program Congress has power to enact” or if it “belongs to [o]r exists against the Federal Government.”
Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 53–54.12In both Atlas Roof ing and this case, a public right exists. In both statutory schemes, regardless of any perceived resemblance to the common law, Congress enacted a new cause of action that created a statutory right belonging to the United States for the Government to enforce pursuant to its sovereign powers.
IV
A faithful and straightforward application of this Court's longstanding precedent should have resolved this case.
Faithful “[a]dherence to precedent is `a foundation stone of the rule of law.' ” Kisor v. Wilkie, 588 U. S. 558, 586 (2019) (quoting Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U. S. 782, 798 (2014)). It allows courts to function, and be perceived, as courts, and not as political entities. “ `It pro12The concurrence's assertion that the majority is “follow[ing] the advice of Justices Brennan and Marshall” by “ `limit[ing] the judicial authority of non-Article III federal tribunals' ” is misleading. Ante, at 159 (quoting Commodity Futures Trading Comm'n v. Schor, 478 U. S. 833, 859 (1986) (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, J., dissenting)). Justice Brennan in his Schor dissent wrote that he would limit the authority of non-Article III tribunals to three recognized exceptions: (1) territorial courts; (2) courts- martial; and (3) forums adjudicating public-rights matters. See id., at 859. As examples of the public-rights category, Justice Brennan cited Murray's Lessee, Ex parte Bakelite, Crowell, Thomas, and his plurality opinion in Northern Pipeline. See Ibid. As those citations demonstrate, both Justices Brennan and Marshall certainly thought that public-rights matters extend to certain private disputes that do not involve the Government as a party, as well as disputes involving the Government in connection with different exercises of congressional power. Indeed, it was Justice Brennan who reaffrmed Atlas Roofng in his opinion for the Granfnanciera Court and explained that a public right includes, at a minimum, a statutory right that “belongs to [o]r exists against the Federal Government.” 492 U. S., at 53–54.
Page Proof Pending Publication motes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process.' ” 588 U. S., at 586–587 (quoting Payne v. Tennessee, 501 U. S. 808, 827 (1991); alterations omitted). That is why, “even in constitutional cases, a departure from precedent `demands special justification.' ” Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. 678, 691 (2019) (quoting Arizona v. Rumsey, 467 U. S. 203, 212 (1984)).
Today's decision disregards these foundational principles.13 Time will tell what is left of the public-rights doctrine. Less uncertain, however, are the momentous consequences that fow from the majority's insistence that the Government's rights to civil penalties must now be tried before a jury in federal court. The majority's decision, which strikes down the SEC's in-house adjudication of civil-penalty claims on the ground that such claims are legal in nature and entitle respondents to a federal jury, effects a seismic shift in this Court's jurisprudence. Indeed, “[i]f you've never heard of a statute being struck down on that ground,” and you recall having read countless cases approving of that arrangement, “you're not alone.” Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, 591 U. S. 197, 294 (2020) (Kagan, J., concurring in judgment with respect to severability and dissenting in part).
The majority pulls a rug out from under Congress without even acknowledging that its decision upends over two centu13Precedents should not be so easily discarded based on the views of some commentators, or on whether or not a particular case is “celebrated.” Ante, at 138, n. 4. Atlas Roofng and the long line of cases before it are precedents from this Court entitled to stare decisis effect. Indeed, this Court has reaffrmed and repeatedly cited Atlas Roofng with approval. See, e. g., Oil States, 584 U. S., at 344–345; Stern, 564 U. S., at 489–490; Granfnanciera, 492 U. S., at 48, 51–54, 60–61; id., at 65–66 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment); Tull, 481 U. S., at 418, n. 4; Northern Pipeline Constr. Co., 458 U. S., at 67, n. 18, 69, n. 23, 70, 73, 77 (plurality opinion).
Page Proof Pending Publication ries of settled Government practice. The United States, led by then-Solicitor General Robert Bork and then-Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Rex Lee, told this Court in Atlas Roofng that “during the whole of our history, regulatory fnes and penalties have been collected by non- jury procedures pursuant to . . . legislative decisions,” and that “[i]t would be most remarkable if, at this late date, the Seventh Amendment were construed to outlaw this consistent rule of government followed for two centuries.” Brief for Respondents in Atlas Roofng, O. T. 1976, No. 75–746, etc., pp. 81–82. This Court agreed and upheld that practice, it seemed, once and for all.
Following this Court's precedents and the recommendation of the Administrative Conference of the United States, Congress has enacted countless new statutes in the past 50 years that have empowered federal agencies to impose civil penalties for statutory violations. See 2 P. Verkuil, D. Gifford, C. Koch, R. Pierce, & J. Lubbers, Administrative Conference of the United States, Recommendations and Reports, The Federal Administrative Judiciary 861, and nn. 350–351 (1992). These statutes are sometimes enacted in addition to, but often instead of, “the traditional civil enforcement statutes that permitted agencies to collect civil money penalties only after federal district court trials.” Id., at 861. “By 1986, there were over 200 such statutes” and “[t]he trend has, if anything, accelerated” since then. Id., at 861, and n. 351.
Similarly, there are, at the very least, more than two dozen agencies that can impose civil penalties in administrative proceedings. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 78–79 (Principal Deputy Solicitor General) (recognizing two dozen agencies with administrative civil-penalty authorities); see also, e. g., 5 U. S. C. § 1215(a)(3)(A)(ii) (Merit Systems Protection Board); 7 U. S. C. §§ 9(10)(C), 13a (Commodity Futures Trading Commission); §§ 499c(a), 586, 2279e(a) (Department of Agriculture); 8 U. S. C. §§ 1324c, 1324d (Department of Justice); 12 U. S. C. §§ 5563(a)(2), (c), (Consumer Financial Protection BuPage Proof Pending Publication reau); 16 U. S. C. § 823b(c) (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission); 20 U. S. C. § 1082(g) (Department of Education); 21 U. S. C. § 335b (Department of Health and Human Services/ Food and Drug Administration); 29 U. S. C. §666(j) (Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission); 30 U. S. C. §§ 820(a) and (b) (Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission); 31 U. S. C. § 5321(a)(2) (Department of the Treasury); 33 U. S. C. §§ 1319(d) and (g) (Environmental Protection Agency); 39 U. S. C. § 3018(c) (Postal Service); 42 U. S. C. §3545(f) (Department of Housing and Urban Development); 46 U. S. C. § 41107(a) (Federal Maritime Commission); 47 U. S. C. § 503(b)(3) (Federal Communications Commission); 49 U. S. C. § 521 (Federal Railroad Administration); § 46301 (Department of Transportation).
Some agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the SEC, can pursue civil penalties in both administrative proceedings and federal court. See, e. g., 12 U. S. C. §§ 5563(a), 5564(a), 5565(a)(1), (2)(H), and (c) (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau); 33 U. S. C. §§ 1319(a), (b), and (g) (Environmental Protection Agency); supra, at 2 (SEC). Others do not have that choice. As the above-cited statutes confrm, the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission, the Department of Agriculture, and many others, can pursue civil penalties only in agency enforcement proceedings. For those and countless other agencies, all the majority can say is tough luck; get a new statute from Congress.
Against this backdrop, our coequal branches will be surprised to learn that the rule they thought long settled, and which remained unchallenged for half a century, is one that, according to the majority and the concurrence, my dissent just announced today. Unfortunately, that mistaken view means that the constitutionality of hundreds of statutes may now be in peril, and dozens of agencies could be stripped of Page Proof Pending Publication their power to enforce laws enacted by Congress. Rather than acknowledge the earthshattering nature of its holding, the majority has tried to disguise it. The majority claims that its ruling is limited to “civil penalty suits for fraud” pursuant to a statute that is “barely over a decade old,” ante, at 131, n. 2, 136, an assurance that is in signifcant tension with other parts of its reasoning. That incredible assertion should fool no one. Today's decision is a massive sea change. Litigants seeking further dismantling of the “administrative state” have reason to rejoice in their win today, but those of us who cherish the rule of law have nothing to celebrate.
* * * Today's ruling is part of a disconcerting trend: When it comes to the separation of powers, this Court tells the American public and its coordinate branches that it knows best. See, e. g., Collins v. Yellen, 594 U. S. 220, 227 (2021) (concluding that the Federal Housing Finance Agency's “structure violates the separation of powers” because the Agency was led by a single Director removable by the President only “ `for cause' ”); United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 594 U. S. 1, 6, 23 (2021) (holding that “authority wielded by [Administrative Patent Judges] during inter partes review is incompatible with their appointment by the Secretary to an inferior offce”); Seila Law, 591 U. S., at 202–205 (holding that “the structure of the [Consumer Financial Protection Bureau] violates the separation of powers” because it was led by a single Director removable by the President only “for cause”); Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Over sight Bd., 561 U. S. 477, 483–484, 492 (2010) (holding “that the dual for-cause limitations on the removal of [Public Company Accounting Oversight] Board members contravene the Constitution's separation of powers”). The Court tells Congress how best to structure agencies, vindicate harms to the public at large, and even provide for the enforcement of rights created for the Government. It does all of this dePage Proof Pending Publication spite the fact that, compared to its political counterparts, “the Judiciary possesses an inferior understanding of the realities of administration” and how “political power . . . operates.” Free Enterprise Fund, 561 U. S., at 523 (Breyer, J., dissenting).
There are good reasons for Congress to set up a scheme like the SEC's. It may yield important benefts over jury trials in federal court, such as greater effciency and expertise, transparency and reasoned decisionmaking, as well as uniformity, predictability, and greater political accountability. See, e. g., Brief for Administrative Law Scholars as Amici Curiae 30–32. Others may believe those benefts are overstated, and that a federal jury is a better check on government overreach. See, e. g., Brief for Cato Institute as Amicus Curiae 11–25. Those arguments take place against the backdrop of a philosophical (and perhaps ideological) debate on whether the number of agencies and authorities properly corresponds to the ever-increasing and evolving problems faced by our society.
This Court's job is not to decide who wins this debate.
These are policy considerations for Congress in exercising its legislative judgment and constitutional authority to decide how to tackle today's problems. It is the electorate, and the Executive to some degree, not this Court, that can and should provide a check on the wisdom of those judgments.
Make no mistake: Today's decision is a power grab. Once again, “[t]he majority arrogates Congress's policymaking role to itself.” Garland v. Cargill, 602 U. S. 406, 442 (2024) (Soon what modern-day adaptable governance must look like.
In telling Congress that it cannot entrust certain public- rights matters to the Executive because it must bring them frst into the Judiciary's province, the majority oversteps its role and encroaches on Congress's constitutional authority. Its decision offends the Framers' constitutional design so Page Proof Pending Publication critical to the preservation of individual liberty: the division of our Government into three coordinate branches to avoid the concentration of power in the same hands. The Federalist No. 51, p. 349 (J. Cooke ed. 1961) (J. Madison). Judicial aggrandizement is as pernicious to the separation of powers as any aggrandizing action from either of the political branches.
Deeply entrenched in today's ruling is the erroneous belief that any “mistaken or wrongful exertion by the legislative department of its authority” can lead to “grave abuses” and “it behooves the judiciary to apply a corrective by exceeding its own authority” through requiring civil-penalty claims to proceed before a federal jury. Stranahan, 214 U. S., at 340. As this Court said over a century ago in this public-rights context, that belief “mistakenly assumes that the courts can alone be safely intrusted with power, and that hence it is their duty to unlawfully exercise prerogatives which they have no right to exert, upon the assumption that wrong must be done to prevent wrong being accomplished.” Ibid. By giving respondents a jury trial, even one that the Constitution does not require, the majority may think that it is protecting liberty. That belief, too, is deeply misguided. The American People should not mistake judicial hubris with the protection of individual rights. Our frst President understood this well. In his parting words to the Nation, he reminded us that a branch of Government arrogating for itself the power of another based on perceptions of what, “in one instance, may be the instrument of good . . . is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.”
Farewell Address (1796), in 35 The Writings of George Washington 229 (J. Fitzpatrick ed. 1940) (footnote omitted). The majority today ignores that wisdom.
Because the Court disregards its own precedent and its coequal partners in our tripartite system of Government, I respectfully dissent.
Page Proof Pending Publication Reporter’s Note The attached opinion has been revised to refect the usual publication and citation style of the United States Reports. The revised pagination makes available the offcial United States Reports citation in advance of publication. The syllabus has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader and constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court. A list of counsel who argued or fled briefs in this case, and who were members of the bar of this Court at the time this case was argued, has been inserted following the syllabus. Other revisions may include adjustments to formatting, captions, citation form, and any errant punctuation. The following additional edits were made: p. 109, line 3: “statues” is replaced with “statutes” p. 115, lines 15 and 16: “statues” is replaced with “statutes” p. 122, line 16 from bottom: “or” is replaced with “and” p. 141, line 9: “Security” is replaced with “Securities” p. 153, line 8 from bottom: “of” is replaced with “at” p. 161, last line: “dissenting” is replaced with “concurring in judgment in part and dissenting in part” p. 164, line 22: “25” is replaced with “35” p. 166, line 14: “(plurality opinion).” is inserted after “564” p. 179, line 4 from bottom: “That” is replaced with “This” p. 184, line 11: “Reporter” is replaced with “Reports” p. 187, line 3: “opinion of” is inserted before “Scalia” p. 187, line 3: “concurring in part” is replaced with “).” p. 188, line 4: “and concurring in judgment” is deleted p. 199, line 17: “Verkuilm” is replaced with “Verkuil” p. 199, line 23: “money” is inserted after “civil” Page Proof Pending Publication