Agency Adjudication and 7th Amendment Jury Trial Rights - SEC v. Jarkesy, 603 U.S. 109 (2024)

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court.

In 2013, the Securities and Exchange Commission initiated an enforcement action against respondents George Jarkesy, Jr., and Patriot28, LLC, seeking civil penalties for alleged securities fraud. The SEC chose to adjudicate the matter in-house before one of its administrative law judges, rather than in federal court where respondents could have proceeded before a jury. We consider whether the Seventh Amendment permits the SEC to compel respondents to defend themselves before the agency rather than before a jury in federal court.

I

A

In the aftermath of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, Congress passed a suite of laws designed to combat securities fraud and increase market transparency. Three such statutes are relevant here: The Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. [] These Acts respectively govern the registration of securities, the trading of securities, and the activities of investment advisers. Their protections are mutually reinforcing and often overlap. Although each regulates different aspects of the securities markets, their pertinent provisions—collectively referred to by regulators as “the antifraud provisions”—target the same basic behavior: misrepresenting or concealing material facts.

The three antifraud provisions … prohibit[] … regulated individuals from “obtain[ing] money or property by means of any untrue statement of a material fact”[;] using “any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,” making “untrue statement[s] of ... material fact,” causing certain material omissions, and “engag[ing] in any act ... which operates or would operate as a fraud”[; and] prohibit[] investment advisers from making “any untrue statement of a material fact” or engaging in “fraudulent, deceptive, or manipulative” acts with respect to investors or prospective investors. []

To enforce these Acts, Congress created the SEC. The SEC may bring an enforcement action in one of two forums. First, the Commission can adjudicate the matter itself.  Alternatively, it can file a suit in federal court. The SEC’s choice of forum dictates two aspects of the litigation: The procedural protections enjoyed by the defendant, and the remedies available to the SEC.

Procedurally, these forums differ in who presides and makes legal determinations, what evidentiary and discovery rules apply, and who finds facts. Most pertinently, in federal court a jury finds the facts, depending on the nature of the claim. See U. S. Const., Amdt. 7. In addition, a life-tenured, salary-protected Article III judge presides, see Art. III, § 1, and the litigation is governed by the Federal Rules of Evidence and the ordinary rules of discovery.

Conversely, when the SEC adjudicates the matter in-house, there are no juries. Instead, the Commission presides and finds facts while its Division of Enforcement prosecutes the case. The Commission may also delegate its role as judge and factfinder to one of its members or to an administrative law judge (ALJ) that it employs. In these proceedings, the Commission or its delegee decides discovery disputes. The Commission or its delegee also determines the scope and form of permissible evidence and may admit hearsay and other testimony that would be inadmissible in federal court.

When a Commission member or an ALJ presides, the full Commission can review that official’s findings and conclusions, but it is not obligated to do so. Judicial review is also available once the proceedings have concluded. But such review is deferential. By law, a reviewing court must treat the agency’s factual findings as “conclusive” if sufficiently supported by the record, [] even when they rest on evidence that could not have been admitted in federal court.

The remedy at issue in this case, civil penalties, also originally depended upon the forum chosen by the SEC. Except in cases against registered entities, the SEC could obtain civil penalties only in federal court. [] That is no longer so. In 2010, Congress passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act), [] That Act “ma[de] the SEC’s authority in administrative penalty proceedings coextensive with its authority to seek penalties in Federal court.” [] In other words, the SEC may now seek civil penalties in federal court, or it may impose them through its own in-house proceedings. []  

Civil penalties rank among the SEC’s most potent enforcement tools. These penalties consist of fines of up to $725,000 per violation. [] And the SEC may levy these penalties even when no investor has actually suffered financial loss. []

B

Shortly after passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC began investigating Jarkesy and Patriot28 for securities fraud. Between 2007 and 2010, Jarkesy launched two investment funds, raising about $24 million from 120 “accredited” investors—a class of investors that includes, for example, financial institutions, certain investment professionals, and high net worth individuals. [] Patriot28, which Jarkesy managed, served as the funds’ investment adviser. According to the SEC, Jarkesy and Patriot28 misled investors in at least three ways: (1) by misrepresenting the investment strategies that Jarkesy and Patriot28 employed, (2) by lying about the identity of the funds’ auditor and prime broker, and (3) by inflating the funds’ claimed value so that Jarkesy and Patriot28 could collect larger management fees. [] The SEC initiated an enforcement action, contending that these actions violated the antifraud provisions of the Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Investment Advisers Act, and sought civil penalties and other remedies.

Relying on the new authority conferred by the Dodd-Frank Act, the SEC opted to adjudicate the matter itself rather than in federal court. In 2014, the presiding ALJ issued an initial decision. The SEC reviewed the decision and then released its final order in 2020.  The final order levied a civil penalty of $300,000 against Jarkesy and Patriot28, directed them to cease and desist committing or causing violations of the antifraud provisions, ordered Patriot28 to disgorge earnings, and prohibited Jarkesy from participating in the securities industry and in offerings of penny stocks.

Jarkesy and Patriot28 petitioned for judicial review. [] A divided panel of the Fifth Circuit granted their petition and vacated the final order. Applying a two-part test from Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U.S. 33 (1989), the panel held that the agency’s decision to adjudicate the matter in-house violated Jarkesy’s and Patriot28’s Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. First, the panel determined that because these SEC antifraud claims were “akin to [a] traditional action [ ] in debt,” a jury trial would be required if this case were brought in an Article III court. It then considered whether the “public rights” exception applied. That exception permits Congress, under certain circumstances, to assign an action to an agency tribunal without a jury, consistent with the Seventh Amendment. The panel concluded that the exception did not apply, and that therefore the case should have been brought in federal court, where a jury could have found the facts pertinent to the defendants’ fraud liability. Based on this Seventh Amendment violation, the panel vacated the final order.

It also identified two further constitutional problems. First, it determined that Congress had violated the nondelegation doctrine by authorizing the SEC, without adequate guidance, to choose whether to litigate this action in an Article III court or to adjudicate the matter itself. The panel also found that the insulation of the SEC ALJs from executive supervision with two layers of for-cause removal protections violated the separation of powers. Judge Davis dissented. The Fifth Circuit denied rehearing en banc, 51 F.4th 644 (2022), and we granted certiorari.

II

This case poses a straightforward question: whether the Seventh Amendment entitles a defendant to a jury trial when the SEC seeks civil penalties against him for securities fraud. Our analysis of this question follows the approach set forth in Granfinanciera and Tull v. United States, 481 U.S. 412 (1987). The threshold issue is whether this action implicates the Seventh Amendment. It does. The SEC’s antifraud provisions replicate common law fraud, and it is well established that common law claims must be heard by a jury.

Since this case does implicate the Seventh Amendment, we next consider whether the “public rights” exception to Article III jurisdiction applies. This exception has been held to permit Congress to assign certain matters to agencies for adjudication even though such proceedings would not afford the right to a jury trial. The exception does not apply here because the present action does not fall within any of the distinctive areas involving governmental prerogatives where the Court has concluded that a matter may be resolved outside of an Article III court, without a jury. The Seventh Amendment therefore applies and a jury is required. Since the answer to the jury trial question resolves this case, we do not reach the nondelegation or removal issues.

A

We first explain why this action implicates the Seventh Amendment.

1

The right to trial by jury is “of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence that any seeming curtailment of the right” has always been and “should be scrutinized with the utmost care.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U.S. 474, 486. (1935). Commentators recognized the right as “the glory of the English law,” [] and it was prized by the American colonists. When the English began evading American juries by siphoning adjudications to juryless admiralty, vice admiralty, and chancery courts, Americans condemned Parliament for “subvert[ing] the rights and liberties of the colonists.” []. Representatives gathered at the First Continental Congress demanded that Parliament respect the “great and inestimable privilege of being tried by their peers of the vicinage, according to the [common] law.” [] And when the English continued to try Americans without juries, the Founders cited the practice as a justification for severing our ties to England. See Declaration of Independence ¶20[].

In the Revolution’s aftermath, perhaps the “most success[ful]” critique leveled against the proposed Constitution was its “want of a ... provision for the trial by jury in civil cases.” The Federalist No. 83, p. 495 []. The Framers promptly adopted the Seventh Amendment to fix that flaw. In so doing, they “embedded” the right in the Constitution, securing it “against the passing demands of expediency or convenience.” Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 10 (1957) (plurality opinion). Since then, “every encroachment upon it has been watched with great jealousy.” Parsons v. Bedford, 28 U.S. 433 (1830).

2

By its text, the Seventh Amendment guarantees that in “[s]uits at common law, ... the right of trial by jury shall be preserved.” In construing this language, we have noted that the right is not limited to the “common-law forms of action recognized” when the Seventh Amendment was ratified. [] As Justice Story explained, the Framers used the term “common law” in the Amendment “in contradistinction to equity, and admiralty, and maritime jurisprudence.” [] The Amendment therefore “embrace[s] all suits which are not of equity or admiralty jurisdiction, whatever may be the peculiar form which they may assume.”

The Seventh Amendment extends to a particular statutory claim if the claim is “legal in nature.” Granfinanciera, []. As we made clear in Tull, whether that claim is statutory is immaterial to this analysis. [] In that case, the Government sued a real estate developer for civil penalties in federal court. The developer responded by invoking his right to a jury trial. Although the cause of action arose under the Clean Water Act, the Court surveyed early cases to show that the statutory nature of the claim was not legally relevant. “Actions by the Government to recover civil penalties under statutory provisions,” we explained, “historically ha[d] been viewed as [a] type of action in debt requiring trial by jury.” []  To determine whether a suit is legal in nature, we directed courts to consider the cause of action and the remedy it provides. Since some causes of action sound in both law and equity, we concluded that the remedy was the “more important” consideration. []

In this case, the remedy is all but dispositive. For respondents’ alleged fraud, the SEC seeks civil penalties, a form of monetary relief. While monetary relief can be legal or equitable, money damages are the prototypical common law remedy. [] What determines whether a monetary remedy is legal is if it is designed to punish or deter the wrongdoer, or, on the other hand, solely to “restore the status quo.” Tull, []. As we have previously explained, “a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment.” [] And while courts of equity could order a defendant to return unjustly obtained funds, only courts of law issued monetary penalties to “punish culpable individuals.” Tull [] Applying these principles, we have recognized that “civil penalt[ies are] a type of remedy at common law that could only be enforced in courts of law.” The same is true here.

To start, the Securities Exchange Act and the Investment Advisers Act condition the availability of civil penalties on six statutory factors: (1) whether the alleged misconduct involved fraud, deceit, manipulation, or deliberate or reckless disregard for regulatory requirements, (2) whether it caused harm, (3) whether it resulted in unjust enrichment, accounting for any restitution made, (4) whether the defendant had previously violated securities laws or regulations, or had previously committed certain crimes, (5) the need for deterrence, and (6) other “matters as justice may require.”[] Of these, several concern culpability, deterrence, and recidivism. Because they tie the availability of civil penalties to the perceived need to punish the defendant rather than to restore the victim, such considerations are legal rather than equitable.

The same is true of the criteria that determine the size of the available remedy. The Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Investment Advisers Act establish three “tiers” of civil penalties. [] Violating a federal securities law or regulation exposes a defendant to a first tier penalty. A second tier penalty may be ordered if the violation involved fraud, deceit, manipulation, or deliberate or reckless disregard for regulatory requirements. Finally, if those acts also resulted in substantial gains to the defendant or losses to another, or created a “significant risk” of the latter, the defendant is subject to a third tier penalty. Each successive tier authorizes a larger monetary sanction.

Like the considerations that determine the availability of civil penalties in the first place, the criteria that divide these tiers are also legal in nature. Each tier conditions the available penalty on the culpability of the defendant and the need for deterrence, not the size of the harm that must be remedied. Indeed, showing that a victim suffered harm is not even required to advance a defendant from one tier to the next. Since nothing in this analysis turns on “restor[ing] the status quo,” Tull [], these factors show that these civil penalties are designed to be punitive.

The final proof that this remedy is punitive is that the SEC is not obligated to return any money to victims. Although the SEC can choose to compensate injured shareholders from the civil penalties it collects, it admits that it is not required to do so. [] Such a penalty by definition does not “restore the status quo” and can make no pretense of being equitable. Tull [].

In sum, the civil penalties in this case are designed to punish and deter, not to compensate. They are therefore “a type of remedy at common law that could only be enforced in courts of law.” That conclusion effectively decides that this suit implicates the Seventh Amendment right, and that a defendant would be entitled to a jury on these claims. []

The close relationship between the causes of action in this case and common law fraud confirms that conclusion. Both target the same basic conduct: misrepresenting or concealing material facts. [] That is no accident. Congress deliberately used “fraud” and other common law terms of art in the Securities Act, the Securities Exchange Act, and the Investment Advisers Act. [] In so doing, Congress incorporated prohibitions from common law fraud into federal securities law. The SEC has followed suit in rulemakings. Rule 10b–5, for example, prohibits “any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud,” and “engag[ing] in any act ... which operates or would operate as a fraud.” []

Congress’s decision to draw upon common law fraud created an enduring link between federal securities fraud and its common law “ancestor.”

* * *

That is not to say that federal securities fraud and common law fraud are identical. In some respects, federal securities fraud is narrower. [ . . .]  Nevertheless, the close relationship between federal securities fraud and common law fraud confirms that this action is “legal in nature.” Granfinanciera []

1

Although the claims at issue here implicate the Seventh Amendment, the Government and the dissent argue that a jury trial is not required because the “public rights” exception applies. Under this exception, Congress may assign the matter for decision to an agency without a jury, consistent with the Seventh Amendment. But this case does not fall within the exception, so Congress may not avoid a jury trial by preventing the case from being heard before an Article III tribunal.

The Constitution prohibits Congress from “withdraw[ing] from judicial cognizance any matter which, from its nature, is the subject of a suit at the common law.” []Once such a suit “is brought within the bounds of federal jurisdiction,” an Article III court must decide it, with a jury if the Seventh Amendment applies. [] These propositions are critical to maintaining the proper role of the Judiciary in the Constitution: “Under ‘the basic concept of separation of powers ... that flow[s] from the scheme of a tripartite government’ adopted in the Constitution, ‘the judicial Power of the United States’ ” cannot be shared with the other branches. [] Or, as Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers, “ ‘there is no liberty if the power of judging be not separated from the legislative and executive powers.’ ” The Federalist No. 78, at 466 [].

On that basis, we have repeatedly explained that matters concerning private rights may not be removed from Article III courts. [] A hallmark that we have looked to in determining if a suit concerns private rights is whether it “is made of ‘the stuff of the traditional actions at common law tried by the courts at Westminster in 1789.’ ” [] If a suit is in the nature of an action at common law, then the matter presumptively concerns private rights, and adjudication by an Article III court is mandatory. []

At the same time, our precedent has also recognized a class of cases concerning what we have called “public rights.” Such matters “historically could have been determined exclusively by [the executive and legislative] branches,” [] even when they were “presented in such form that the judicial power [wa]s capable of acting on them,”[] In contrast to common law claims, no involvement by an Article III court in the initial adjudication is necessary in such a case.

The decision that first recognized the public rights exception was Murray’s Lessee. In that case, a federal customs collector failed to deliver public funds to the Treasury, so the Government issued a “warrant of distress” to compel him to produce the withheld sum. [] Pursuant to the warrant, the Government eventually seized and sold a plot of the collector’s land. Plaintiffs later attacked the purchaser’s title, arguing that the initial seizure was void because the Government had audited the collector’s account and issued the warrant itself without judicial involvement.

The Court upheld the sale. It explained that pursuant to its power to collect revenue, the Government could rely on “summary proceedings” to compel its officers to “pay such balances of the public money” into the Treasury “as may be in their hands.”[] Indeed, the Court observed, there was an unbroken tradition—long predating the founding—of using these kinds of proceedings to “enforce payment of balances due from receivers of the revenue.” [] In light of this historical practice, the Government could issue a valid warrant without intruding on the domain of the Judiciary. [] The challenge to the sale thus lacked merit.

This principle extends beyond cases involving the collection of revenue. In Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. v. Stranahan, 214 U.S. 320 (1909), we considered the imposition of a monetary penalty on a steamship company. Pursuant to its plenary power over immigration, Congress had excluded immigration by aliens afflicted with “loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases,” and it authorized customs collectors to enforce the prohibition with fines. [] When a steamship company challenged the penalty under Article III, we upheld it. Congress’s power over foreign commerce, we explained, was so total that no party had a “ ‘vested right’ ” to import anything into the country. [] By the same token, Congress could also prohibit immigration by certain classes of persons and enforce those prohibitions with administrative penalties assessed without a jury.  

In Ex parte Bakelite Corp., we upheld a law authorizing the President to impose tariffs on goods imported by “unfair methods of competition.”[] The law permitted him to set whatever tariff was necessary, subject to a statutory cap, to produce fair competition. If the President was “satisfied the unfairness [was] extreme,” the law even authorized him to “exclude[ ]” foreign goods entirely. Because the political branches had traditionally held exclusive power over this field and had exercised it, we explained that the assessment of tariffs did not implicate Article III. []

This Court has since held that certain other historic categories of adjudications fall within the exception, including relations with Indian tribes,[] the administration of public lands, [] and the granting of public benefits such as payments to veterans, pensions, and patent rights [].

Our opinions governing the public rights exception have not always spoken in precise terms. This is an “area of frequently arcane distinctions and confusing precedents.” [] The Court “has not ‘definitively explained’ the distinction between public and private rights,” and we do not claim to do so today. []

Nevertheless, since Murray’s Lessee, this Court has typically evaluated the legal basis for the assertion of the doctrine with care. The public rights exception is, after all, an exception. It has no textual basis in the Constitution and must therefore derive instead from background legal principles. Murray’s Lessee itself, for example, took pains to justify the application of the exception in that particular instance by explaining that it flowed from centuries-old rules concerning revenue collection by a sovereign. [] Without such close attention to the basis for each asserted application of the doctrine, the exception would swallow the rule.2

From the beginning we have emphasized one point: “To avoid misconstruction upon so grave a subject, we think it proper to state that we do not consider congress can ... withdraw from judicial cognizance any matter which, from its nature, is the subject of a suit at the common law, or in equity, or admiralty.” Murray’s Lessee. We have never embraced the proposition that “practical” considerations alone can justify extending the scope of the public rights exception to such matters. [] And for good reason: “Article III could neither serve its purpose in the system of checks and balances nor preserve the integrity of judicial decisionmaking if the other branches of the Federal Government could confer the Government’s ‘judicial Power’ on entities outside Article III.” []

2

This is not the first time we have considered whether the Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial “in the face of Congress’ decision to allow a non-Article III tribunal to adjudicate” a statutory “fraud claim.” We did so in Granfinanciera, and the principles identified in that case largely resolve this one.

Granfinanciera involved a statutory action for fraudulent conveyance. As codified in the Bankruptcy Code, the claim permitted a trustee to void a transfer or obligation made by the debtor before bankruptcy if the debtor “received less than a reasonably equivalent value in exchange for such transfer or obligation.” [] Actions for fraudulent conveyance were well known at common law. [] Even when Congress added these claims to the Bankruptcy Code in 1978, it preserved parties’ rights to a trial by jury []. In 1984, however, Congress designated fraudulent conveyance actions “core [bankruptcy] proceedings” and authorized non-Article III bankruptcy judges to hear them without juries. []

The issue in Granfinanciera was whether this designation was permissible under the public rights exception. We explained that it was not. Although Congress had assigned fraudulent conveyance claims to bankruptcy courts, that assignment was not dispositive. What mattered, we explained, was the substance of the suit. “[T]raditional legal claims” must be decided by courts, “whether they originate in a newly fashioned regulatory scheme or possess a long line of common-law forebears.” [] To determine whether the claim implicated the Seventh Amendment, the Court applied the principles distilled in Tull. We examined whether the matter was “from [its] nature subject to ‘a suit at common law.’ ” [] A survey of English cases showed that “actions to recover ... fraudulent transfers were often brought at law in late 18th-century England.” The remedy the trustee sought was also one “traditionally provided by law courts.” Fraudulent conveyance actions were thus “quintessentially suits at common law.”

We also considered whether these actions were “closely intertwined” with the bankruptcy regime. Some bankruptcy claims, such as “creditors’ hierarchically ordered claims to a pro rata share of the bankruptcy res,” are highly interdependent and require coordination. Resolving such claims fairly is only possible if they are all submitted at once to a single adjudicator. Otherwise, parties with lower priority claims can rush to the courthouse to seek payment before higher priority claims exhaust the estate, and an orderly disposition of a bankruptcy is impossible. Other claims, though, can be brought in standalone suits, because they are neither prioritized nor subordinated to related claims. Since fraudulent conveyance actions fall into that latter category, we concluded that these actions were not “closely intertwined” with the bankruptcy process. We also noted that Congress had already authorized jury trials for certain bankruptcy matters, demonstrating that jury trials were not generally “incompatible” with the overall regime.

We accordingly concluded that fraudulent conveyance actions were akin to “suits at common law” and were not inseparable from the bankruptcy process. The public rights exception therefore did not apply, and a jury was required.

3

Granfinanciera effectively decides this case. Even when an action “originate[s] in a newly fashioned regulatory scheme,” what matters is the substance of the action, not where Congress has assigned it. And in this case, the substance points in only one direction.

According to the SEC, these are actions under the “antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws” for “fraudulent conduct.” [] They provide civil penalties, a punitive remedy that we have recognized “could only be enforced in courts of law.” Tull.  And they target the same basic conduct as common law fraud, employ the same terms of art, and operate pursuant to similar legal principles. [] In short, this action involves a “matter[ ] of private rather than public right.” Granfinanciera, [] Therefore, “Congress may not ‘withdraw’ ” it “ ‘from judicial cognizance.’ ”[]

4

Notwithstanding Granfinanciera, the SEC contends the public rights exception still applies in this case because Congress created “new statutory obligations, impose[d] civil penalties for their violation, and then commit[ted] to an administrative agency the function of deciding whether a violation ha[d] in fact occurred.” []

The foregoing from Granfinanciera already does away with much of the SEC’s argument. Congress cannot “conjure away the Seventh Amendment by mandating that traditional legal claims be ... taken to an administrative tribunal.” [] Nor does the fact that the SEC action “originate[d] in a newly fashioned regulatory scheme” permit Congress to siphon this action away from an Article III court. The constructive fraud claim in Granfinanciera was also statutory, but we nevertheless explained that the public rights exception did not apply. Again, if the action resembles a traditional legal claim, its statutory origins are not dispositive.

The SEC’s sole remaining basis for distinguishing Granfinanciera is that the Government is the party prosecuting this action. [] But we have never held that “the presence of the United States as a proper party to the proceeding is ... sufficient” by itself to trigger the exception. [] Again, what matters is the substance of the suit, not where it is brought, who brings it, or how it is labeled. The object of this SEC action is to regulate transactions between private individuals interacting in a pre-existing market. To do so, the Government has created claims whose causes of action are modeled on common law fraud and that provide a type of remedy available only in law courts. This is a common law suit in all but name. And such suits typically must be adjudicated in Article III courts.

5

The principal case on which the SEC and the dissent rely is Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, 430 U.S. 442 (1977). Because the public rights exception as construed in Atlas Roofing does not extend to these civil penalty suits for fraud, that case does not control. And for that same reason, we need not reach the suggestion made by Jarkesy and Patriot28 that Tull and Granfinanciera effectively overruled Atlas Roofing to the extent that case construed the public rights exception to allow the adjudication of civil penalty suits in administrative tribunals.3

The litigation in Atlas Roofing arose under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSH Act), a federal regulatory regime created to promote safe working conditions. [] The Act authorized the Secretary of Labor to promulgate safety regulations, and it empowered the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) to adjudicate alleged violations. If a party violated the regulations, the agency could impose civil penalties.

Unlike the claims in Granfinanciera and this action, the OSH Act did not borrow its cause of action from the common law. Rather, it simply commanded that “[e]ach employer ... shall comply with occupational safety and health standards promulgated under this chapter.”[] These standards bring no common law soil with them. Rather than reiterate common law terms of art, they instead resembled a detailed building code. For example, the OSH Act regulations directed that a ground trench wall of “Solid Rock, Shale, or Cemented Sand and Gravels” could be constructed at a 90 degree angle to the ground. [] But a wall of “Compacted Angular Gravels” needed to be sloped at 63 degrees, and a wall of “Well Rounded Loose Sand” at 26 degrees. [] The purpose of this regime was not to enable the Federal Government to bring or adjudicate claims that traced their ancestry to the common law. Rather, Congress stated that it intended the agency to “develop[ ] innovative methods, techniques, and approaches for dealing with occupational safety and health problems.” [] In both concept and execution, the Act was self-consciously novel.

Facing enforcement actions, two employers alleged that the adjudicatory authority of the OSHRC violated the Seventh Amendment. See Atlas Roofing [] The Court rejected the challenge, concluding that “when Congress creates new statutory ‘public rights,’ it may assign their adjudication to an administrative agency with which a jury trial would be incompatible, without violating the Seventh Amendment[ ].” As the Court explained, the case involved “a new cause of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law.” The Seventh Amendment, the Court concluded, was accordingly “no bar to ... enforcement outside the regular courts of law.”

The cases that Atlas Roofing relied upon did not extend the public rights exception to “traditional legal claims.” Granfinanciera [] Instead, they applied the exception to actions that were “ ‘not ... suit[s] at common law or in the nature of such ... suit[s].’ ” Atlas Roofing, []. Indeed, the Court recognized that if a case did involve a common law action or its equivalent, a jury was required. []

Atlas Roofing concluded that Congress could assign the OSH Act adjudications to an agency because the claims were “unknown to the common law.”[] The case therefore does not control here, where the statutory claim is “ ‘in the nature of ’ ” a common law suit. [] As we have explained, Jarkesy and Patriot28 were prosecuted for “fraudulent conduct,” and the pertinent statutory provisions derive from, and are interpreted in light of, their common law counterparts [].

The reasoning of Atlas Roofing cannot support any broader rule. The dissent chants “Atlas Roofing” like a mantra, but no matter how many times it repeats those words, it cannot give Atlas Roofing substance that it lacks.4 Even as Atlas Roofing invoked the public rights exception, the definition it offered of the exception was circular. The exception applied, the Court said, “in cases in which ‘public rights’ are being litigated—e. g., cases in which the Government sues in its sovereign capacity to enforce public rights created by statutes.” []

After Atlas Roofing, this Court clarified in Tull that the Seventh Amendment does apply to novel statutory regimes, so long as the claims are akin to common law claims. [] In addition, we have explained that the public rights exception does not apply automatically whenever Congress assigns a matter to an agency for adjudication. See Granfinanciera, [].

For its part, the dissent also seems to suggest that Atlas Roofing establishes that the public rights exception applies whenever a statute increases governmental efficiency. (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). Again, our precedents foreclose this argument. As Stern explained, effects like increasing efficiency and reducing public costs are not enough to trigger the exception. [] Otherwise, evading the Seventh Amendment would become nothing more than a game, where the Government need only identify some slight advantage to the public from agency adjudication to strip its target of the protections of the Seventh Amendment.

The novel claims in Atlas Roofing had never been brought in an Article III court. By contrast, law courts have dealt with fraud actions since before the founding, and Congress had authorized the SEC to bring such actions in Article III courts and still authorizes the SEC to do so today. []  Given the judiciary’s long history of handling fraud claims, it cannot be argued that the courts lack the capacity needed to adjudicate such actions.

In short, Atlas Roofing does not conflict with our conclusion. When a matter “from its nature, is the subject of a suit at the common law,” Congress may not “withdraw [it] from judicial cognizance.” Murray’s Lessee []

* * *

A defendant facing a fraud suit has the right to be tried by a jury of his peers before a neutral adjudicator. Rather than recognize that right, the dissent would permit Congress to concentrate the roles of prosecutor, judge, and jury in the hands of the Executive Branch. That is the very opposite of the separation of powers that the Constitution demands. Jarkesy and Patriot28 are entitled to a jury trial in an Article III court. We do not reach the remaining constitutional issues and affirm the ruling of the Fifth Circuit on the Seventh Amendment ground alone.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is affirmed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

[ * * * ]

[Justices Gorsuch and Thomas concurrence omitted]

Justice SOTOMAYOR, with whom Justice KAGAN and Justice JACKSON join, dissenting.

Throughout our Nation’s history, Congress has authorized agency adjudicators to find 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 Roofing 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 agencies 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 first 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 firm 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 filed suit in federal court or adjudicated the matter in an administrative enforcement action subject to judicial review. [] 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. Specifically, the SEC alleged that respondents falsely told brokers and investors that: (1) a prominent accounting firm 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 profits.

Respondents filed 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 because the federal-securities antifraud provisions were similar to common-law fraud claims to which the jury-trial right would attach. 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.

The majority affirms 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. [] In assessing the constitutionality of such adjudications, the political branches’ “ ‘[l]ong settled and established practice,’ ” which this Court has upheld and reaffirmed time and again, is entitled to “ ‘great weight.’ ”[]

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.” 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, [] (1821) (Marshall, C. J.), or a “proceeding in a court of justice,” [] 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 Roofing, [] Factfinding by a jury is “incompatible with the whole concept of administrative adjudication,” which empowers executive officials to find 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]uit’” must be one “ ‘at common law’ ” means that the claim at issue must be “ ‘legal in nature.’ ”[] 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. Granfinanciera [],; Atlas Roofing []. 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. [] In other words, the question is whether Congress improperly bestowed federal judicial power on a non-Article III forum. []

The conclusion that Congress properly assigned a matter to an agency for adjudication therefore necessarily “resolves [any] Seventh Amendment challenge.” [] When executive power is at stake, Congress does not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment by authorizing a nonjury factfinder 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 factfinder.

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 Murray’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.’ ” []

The majority says that aspects of the public-rights doctrine have been confusing.  That might be true for cases involving wholly private disputes, but not for cases where the Government is a party. It has long been 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.” [] 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 public—that is, rights pertaining to claims brought by or against the United States.” Granfinanciera, []. So, while this Court has recognized public rights in certain disputes between private parties, 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 Roofing, (collecting cases). [] This Court has repeatedly emphasized these unifying principles through an unbroken series of cases over almost 200 years.

1

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. The Government executed the warrant to seize and sell a plot of the collector’s land to make up for the withheld funds. 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 official’s adjudication of the facts did not violate Article III. The scheme was constitutional, the Court said, because “public rights” were at issue. In other words, the dispute arose between the Government and the customs collector in connection with the 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.” 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.

[Discussion of line of cases omitted]

[ * * * ]

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 fines, this Court, without exception, has sustained the statutory scheme authorizing that enforcement outside of Article III.

2

A unanimous Court made this exact point nearly half a century ago in Atlas Roofing. 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.The Court said it did.

In Atlas Roofing, the Court explained how Congress identified 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. Specifically, Congress found “that work-related deaths and injuries had become a ‘drastic’ national problem,” and that existing causes of action, including tort actions for negligence and wrongful death, did not adequately “protect the employee population from death and injury due to unsafe working conditions.”  In response, Congress enacted the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) to require employers “to avoid maintaining unsafe or unhealthy working conditions.” 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.

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.” Therefore, the employers claimed, the Seventh Amendment right to a jury attached and Congress could not assign the matter to an agency for resolution.

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 first instance. 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.” “That 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.” []

The “new rule” and “legally unsound principle” that the majority accuses this dissent of “unfurl[ing]” today, 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 fines ... 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, [] (collecting cases) [].

C

It should be obvious by now how this case should have been resolved under a faithful and straightforward application of Atlas Roofing and a long line of this Court’s precedents. The constitutional question is indistinguishable. The majority instead wishes away Atlas Roofing by burying it at the end of its opinion and minimizing the unbroken line of cases on which Atlas Roofing relied. That approach to precedent significantly undermines this Court’s commitment to stare decisis and the rule of law.

[ * * * ]

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 Roofing put it, “new cause[s] of action, and remedies therefor, unknown to the common law.” 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.” 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 [] That is why the Court has had no cause to address this kind of constitutional challenge since its unanimous decision in Atlas Roofing. The majority takes a 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. [] Unable to explain that doctrine, the majority effectively ignores the Article III threshold question to focus instead on two Seventh Amendment cases: [Tull and Granfinanciera]. 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. The majority and the concurrence then predictably fail to distinguish Atlas Roofing, which resolved the Seventh Amendment question for cases like this one implicating that critical fact.

[ * * * ]

C

Both cases relied on by the majority, Tull and Granfinanciera, reaffirm that Atlas Roofing controls precisely in circumstances like the ones at issue in this case. That is why the majority’s late-stage attempt to distinguish Atlas Roofing fails. The majority’s principal argument that the OSHA scheme in Atlas Roofing “did not borrow its cause of action from the common law” and was instead a “self-consciously novel” scheme that “resembled a detailed building code,” is flawed on multiple fronts.

[ * * * ]

In sum, all avenues by which the majority attempts to distinguish Atlas Roofing fail. The majority cannot escape the 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.” Granfinanciera []. In both Atlas Roofing 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. []

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 flow 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 centuries 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 Roofing that “during the whole of our history, regulatory fines 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.” []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 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. []

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. [] Others do not have that choice. As the above-cited statutes confirm, 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 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,” an assurance that is in significant 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, 141 S.Ct. 1761, 210 L.Ed.2d 432 (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, 141 S.Ct. 1970, 210 L.Ed.2d 268 (2021) (holding that “authority wielded by [Administrative Patent Judges] during inter partes review is incompatible with their appointment by the Secretary to an inferior office”); Seila Law, 591 U.S. at 202–205, 140 S.Ct. 2183 (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 Oversight Bd., 561 U.S. 477, 483–484, 492, 130 S.Ct. 3138, 177 L.Ed.2d 706 (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 despite 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, 130 S.Ct. 3138 (Breyer, J., dissenting).

There are good reasons for Congress to set up a scheme like the SEC’s. It may yield important benefits over jury trials in federal court, such as greater efficiency and expertise, transparency and reasoned decisionmaking, as well as uniformity, predictability, and greater political accountability. [] Others may believe those benefits are overstated, and that a federal jury is a better check on government overreach. [] 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, “the majority arrogates Congress’s policymaking role to itself.” Garland v. Cargill, 602 U. S. 406, 442, (2024) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). It prescribes artificial constraints on 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 first 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 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. [] 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, 29 S.Ct. 671. 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.”

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 first 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) [].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.