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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
_________________
No. 16–498
_________________
DAVID PATCHAK, PETITIONER
v. RYAN
ZINKE, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, et al.
on writ of certiorari to the united states
court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit
[February 27, 2018]
Justice Thomas announced the judgment of the
Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justice Breyer, Justice
Alito, and Justice Kagan join.
Petitioner, David Patchak, sued the Secretary of
the Interior for taking land into trust on behalf of an Indian
Tribe. While his suit was pending in the District Court, Congress
enacted the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act (Gun Lake Act or
Act), Pub. L. 113–179, 128Stat. 1913, which provides that suits
relating to the land “shall not be filed or maintained in a Federal
court and shall be promptly dismissed.” Patchak contends that, in
enacting this statute, Congress impermissibly infringed the
judicial power that Article III of the Constitution vests
exclusively in the Judicial Branch. Because we disagree, we affirm
the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit.
I
The Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of
Pottawatomi Indians (Band) resides in southwestern Michigan, near
the township of Wayland. The Band traces its relationship with the
United States back hundreds of years, pointing to treaties it
negotiated with the Federal Government as early as 1795. But the
Secretary of the Interior did not formally recognize the Band until
1999. See 63 Fed. Reg. 56936 (1998); 65 Fed. Reg. 13298 (2000).
After obtaining formal recognition, the Band
identified a 147-acre parcel of land in Wayland, known as the
Bradley Property, where it wanted to build a casino. The Band asked
the Secretary to invoke the Indian Reorganization Act, §5, 48Stat.
985, 25 U. S. C. §5108, and take the Bradley Property
into trust.[
1] In 2005, the
Secretary agreed and posted a notice informing the public that the
Bradley Property would be taken into trust for the Band. See 70
Fed. Reg. 25596 (2005).
The Michigan Gambling Opposition (MichGO) sued,
alleging that the Secretary’s decision violated federal
environmental and gaming laws. After several years of litigation,
the D. C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of MichGo’s claims,
and this Court denied certiorari.
Michigan Gambling
Opposition v.
Kempthorne, 525 F. 3d 23 (2008),
cert. denied, 555 U. S. 1137 (2009) . In January 2009, the
Secretary formally took the Bradley Property into trust. And in
February 2011, the Band opened its casino.
Before the Secretary formally took the land into
trust, a nearby landowner, David Patchak, filed another lawsuit
challenging the Secretary’s decision. Invoking the Administrative
Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. §§702, 706(2), Patchak alleged
that the Secretary lacked statutory authority to take the Bradley
Property into trust for the Band. The Indian Reorganization Act
does not allow the Secretary to take land into trust for tribes
that were not under federal jurisdiction when the statute was
enacted in 1934. See
Carcieri v.
Salazar, 555
U. S. 379 –383 (2009). The Band was not federally recognized
until 1999, which Patchak argued was more than 65 years too late.
Based on this alleged statutory violation, Patchak sought to
reverse the Secretary’s decision to take the Bradley Property into
trust.
The Secretary raised preliminary objections to
Patchak’s suit, contending that it was barred by sovereign immunity
and that Patchak lacked prudential standing to bring it. The
District Court granted the Secretary’s motion to dismiss, but the
D. C. Circuit reversed.
Patchak v.
Salazar, 646
F. Supp. 2d 72 (DC 2009), rev’d, 632 F. 3d 702 (2011).
This Court granted certiorari and affirmed the D. C. Circuit.
Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v.
Patchak, 567 U. S. 209 (2012) (
Patchak I ).
This Court’s decision in
Patchak I held that Congress
had waived the Secretary’s sovereign immunity from suits like
Patchak’s.
Id., at 215–224. It also held that Patchak had
prudential standing because his suit arguably fell within the “zone
of interests” protected by the Indian Reorganization Act.
Id., at 224–228. Because Patchak had standing and the
Secretary lacked immunity, this Court concluded that “Patchak’s
suit may proceed,”
id., at 212, and remanded for further
proceedings,
id., at 228.
In September 2014, while Patchak’s suit was back
in the District Court, Congress enacted the Gun Lake Act, 128Stat.
1913. Section 2(a) of the Act states that the Bradley Property “is
reaffirmed as trust land, and the actions of the Secretary of the
Interior in taking that land into trust are ratified and
confirmed.” Section 2(b) then provides the following:
“No Claims.—Notwithstanding any other
provision of law, an action (including an action pending in a
Federal court as of the date of enactment of this Act) relating to
the land described in subsection (a) shall not be filed or
maintained in a Federal court and shall be promptly dismissed.”
Based on §2(b), the District Court entered
summary judgment against Patchak and dismissed his suit for lack of
jurisdiction. 109 F. Supp. 3d 152 (DC 2015).
The D. C. Circuit affirmed.
Patchak
v.
Jewell, 828 F. 3d 995 (2016). It held that “[t]he
language of the Gun Lake Act makes plain that Congress has stripped
federal courts of subject matter jurisdiction” over suits, like
Patchak’s, that relate to the Bradley Property.
Id., at
1001. The D. C. Circuit rejected Patchak’s argument that §2(b)
violates Article III of the Constitution.
Id., at 1001–1003.
Article III prohibits Congress from “direct[ing] the result of
pending litigation,” the D. C. Circuit reasoned, but it does
not prohibit Congress from “ ‘supply[ing] new law.’ ”
Id., at 1002 (quoting
Robertson v.
Seattle Audubon
Soc., 503 U. S. 429, 439 (1992) ). Section 2(b) supplies
new law: “[I]f an action relates to the Bradley Property, it must
promptly be dismissed.” 828 F. 3d, at 1003.
We granted certiorari to review whether §2(b)
violates Article III of the Constitution.[
2] See 581 U. S. ___ (2017). Because it does not,
we now affirm.
II
A
The Constitution creates three branches of
Government and vests each branch with a different type of power.
See Art. I, §1; Art. II, §1, cl. 1; Art. III,
§1. “To the legislative department has been committed the duty of
making laws; to the executive the duty of executing them; and to
the judiciary the duty of interpreting and applying them in cases
properly brought before the courts.”
Massachusetts v.
Mellon, 262 U. S. 447, 488 (1923) ; see also
Wayman v.
Southard, 10 Wheat. 1, 46 (1825) (Marshall,
C. J.) (“[T]he legislature makes, the executive executes, and
the judiciary construes the law”). By vesting each branch with an
exclusive form of power, the Framers kept those powers separate.
See
INS v.
Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 946 (1983) .
Each branch “exercise[s] . . . the powers appropriate to
its own department,” and no branch can “encroach upon the powers
confided to the others.”
Kilbourn v.
Thompson, 103
U. S. 168, 191 (1881) . This system prevents “[t]he
accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary,
in the same hands,” The Federalist No. 47, p. 301 (C.
Rossiter ed. 1961) (J. Madison)—an accumulation that would pose an
inherent “threat to liberty,”
Clinton v.
City of New
York, 524 U. S. 417, 450 (1998) (Kennedy, J.,
concurring).
The separation of powers, among other things,
prevents Congress from exercising the judicial power. See
Plaut v.
Spendthrift Farm, Inc., 514 U. S. 211,
218 (1995) . One way that Congress can cross the line from
legislative power to judicial power is by “usurp[ing] a court’s
power to interpret and apply the law to the [circumstances] before
it.”
Bank Markazi v.
Peterson, 578 U. S. ___,
___ (2016) (slip op., at 12). The simplest example would be a
statute that says, “In
Smith v.
Jones, Smith wins.”
See
id., at ___–___, n. 17 (slip op., at 12–13,
n. 17). At the same time, the legislative power is the power
to make law, and Congress can make laws that apply retroactively to
pending lawsuits, even when it effectively ensures that one side
wins. See
id., at ___–___ (slip op., at 15–19).
To distinguish between permissible exercises of
the legislative power and impermissible infringements of the
judicial power, this Court’s precedents establish the following
rule: Congress violates Article III when it “compel[s]
. . . findings or results under old law.”
Seattle
Audubon,
supra, at 438. But Congress does not violate
Article III when it “changes the law.”
Plaut,
supra,
at 218.
B
Section 2(b) changes the law. Specifically, it
strips federal courts of jurisdiction over actions “relating to”
the Bradley Property. Before the Gun Lake Act, federal courts had
jurisdiction to hear these actions. See 28 U. S. C.
§1331. Now they do not. This kind of legal change is well within
Congress’ authority and does not violate Article III.
1
Section 2(b) strips federal jurisdiction over
suits relating to the Bradley Property. The statute uses
jurisdictional language. It states that an “action” relating to the
Bradley Property “shall not be filed or maintained in a Federal
court.” It imposes jurisdictional consequences: Actions relating to
the Bradley Property “shall be promptly dismissed.” See
Ex parte
McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, 514 (1869) (“[W]hen [jurisdiction]
ceases to exist, the only function remaining to the court is that
of announcing the fact and dismissing the cause”). Section 2(b) has
no exceptions. Cf.
Reed Elsevier, Inc. v.
Muchnick,
559 U. S. 154, 165 (2010) . And it applies “[n]otwithstanding
any other provision of law,” including the general grant of
federal-question jurisdiction, 28 U. S. C. §1331.
Although §2(b) does not use the word “jurisdiction,” this Court
does not require jurisdictional statutes to “incant magic words.”
Sebelius v.
Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568
U. S. 145, 153 (2013) . Indeed, §2(b) uses language similar to
other statutes that this Court has deemed jurisdictional. See,
e.g.,
Gonzalez v.
Thaler, 565 U. S. 134,
142 (2012) (“ ‘an appeal may not be taken’ ” (quoting 28
U. S. C. §2253(c)(1)));
Keene Corp. v.
United
States, 508 U. S. 200 –209 (1993) (“ ‘[n]o person
shall file or prosecute’ ” (quoting 36Stat. 1138));
Weinberger v.
Salfi, 422 U. S. 749, 756 (1975)
(“ ‘[n]o action . . . shall be brought under [ 28
U. S. C. §1331]’ ” (quoting 42 U. S. C.
§405(h))).
Our conclusion that §2(b) is jurisdictional is
bolstered by the fact that it cannot plausibly be read as anything
else. Section 2(b) is not one of the nonjurisdictional rules that
this Court’s precedents have identified as “important and
mandatory” but not governing “a court’s adjudicatory capacity.”
Henderson v.
Shinseki, 562 U. S. 428, 435 (2011)
. Section 2(b) does not identify an “element of [the] plaintiff ’s
claim for relief ” or otherwise define its “substantive adequacy.”
Arbaugh v.
Y & H Corp., 546 U. S. 500, 516,
504 (2006) . Nor is it a “claim-processing rule,” like a filing
deadline or an exhaustion requirement, that requires the parties to
“take certain procedural steps at certain specified times.”
Henderson,
supra, at 435
. Instead, §2(b)
completely prohibits actions relating to the Bradley Property.
Because §2(b) addresses “a court’s competence to adjudicate a
particular category of cases,”
Wachovia Bank, N. A. v.
Schmidt, 546 U. S. 303, 316 (2006) , it is best read as
a jurisdiction-stripping statute.
2
Statutes that strip jurisdiction “chang[e] the
law” for the purpose of Article III,
Plaut,
supra, at
218, just as much as other exercises of Congress’ legislative
authority. Article I permits Congress “[t]o constitute Tribunals
inferior to the supreme Court,” §8, and Article III vests the
judicial power “in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts
as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish,” §1.
These provisions reflect the so-called Madison- ian Compromise,
which resolved the Framers’ disagreement about creating lower
federal courts by leaving that decision to Congress. See
Printz v.
United States, 521 U. S. 898, 907
(1997) ; 1 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 125 (M.
Farrand ed. 1911). Congress’ greater power to create lower federal
courts includes its lesser power to “limit the jurisdiction of
those Courts.”
United States v.
Hudson, 7 Cranch 32,
33 (1812); accord,
Lockerty v.
Phillips, 319
U. S. 182, 187 (1943) . So long as Congress does not violate
other constitutional provisions, its “control over the jurisdiction
of the federal courts” is “plenary.”
Trainmen v.
Toledo,
P. & W. R. Co., 321 U. S. 50 –64 (1944); see also
Bowles v.
Russell, 551 U. S. 205, 212 (2007)
(“Within constitutional bounds, Congress decides what cases the
federal courts have jurisdiction to consider”). Thus, when Congress
strips federal courts of jurisdic- tion, it exercises a valid
legislative power no less than when it lays taxes, coins money,
declares war, or invokes any other power that the Constitution
grants it.
Indeed, this Court has held that Congress
generally does not violate Article III when it strips federal
jurisdiction over a class of cases.[
3] Shortly after the Civil War, for example, Congress
repealed this Court’s appellate jurisdiction over certain habeas
corpus cases. See Act of Mar. 27, 1868, ch. 34, §2, 15Stat.
44; see also U. S. Const., Art. III, §2 (permitting
Congress to make “Exceptions” to this Court’s appellate
jurisdiction). William McCardle, a military prisoner whose appeal
was pending at the time, argued that the repealing statute was “an
exercise by the Congress of judicial power.” 7 Wall., at 510. This
Court disagreed. Jurisdiction-stripping statutes, the Court
explained, do not involve “the exercise of judicial power” or
“legislative interference with courts in the exercising of
continuing jurisdiction.”
Id., at 514. Because jurisdiction
is the “power to declare the law” in the first place, “judicial
duty is not less fitly performed by declining ungranted
jurisdiction than in exercising firmly that which the Constitution
and the laws confer.”
Id., at 514–515.[
4]
This Court has reaffirmed these principles on
many occasions. Congress generally does not infringe the judicial
power when it strips jurisdiction because, with limited exceptions,
a congressional grant of jurisdiction is a
prerequisite to
the exercise of judicial power. See
Steel Co. v.
Citizens
for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83 –95 (1998) (“The
requirement that jurisdiction be established as a threshold matter
‘spring[s] from the nature and limits of the judicial power of the
United States’ ” (quoting
Mansfield, C. & L. M. R.
Co. v.
Swan, 111 U. S. 379, 382 (1884) ));
Cary v.
Curtis, 3 How. 236, 245 (1845) (“[T]he
judicial power of the United States . . . is (except in
enumerated instances, applicable exclusively to this court)
dependent . . . entirely upon the action of Congress”);
Hudson,
supra, at 33 (similar). “To deny this
position” would undermine the separation of powers by “elevat[ing]
the judicial over the legislative branch.”
Cary,
supra, at 245. Congress’ power over federal jurisdiction is
“an essential ingredient of separation and equilibration of powers,
restraining the courts from acting at certain times, and even
restraining them from acting permanently regarding certain
subjects.”
Steel Co.,
supra, at 101.
In sum, §2(b) strips jurisdiction over suits
relating to the Bradley Property. It is a valid exercise of
Congress’ legislative power. And because it changes the law, it
does not infringe the judicial power. The constitutionality of
jurisdiction-stripping statutes like this one is well
established.
III
Patchak does not dispute Congress’ power to
withdraw jurisdiction from the federal courts. He instead raises
two arguments why §2(b) violates Article III, even if it strips
jurisdiction. First, relying on
United States v.
Klein, 13 Wall. 128 (1872), Patchak argues that §2(b) flatly
directs federal courts to dismiss lawsuits without allowing them to
interpret or apply any new law. Second, relying on
Plaut,
514 U. S. 211 , Patchak argues that §2(b) attempts to
interfere with this Court’s decision in
Patchak
I—specifically, its conclusion that his suit “may proceed,” 567
U. S., at 212. We reject both arguments.
A
Section 2(b) does not flatly direct federal
courts to dismiss lawsuits under old law. It creates new law for
suits relating to the Bradley Property, and the District Court
interpreted and applied that new law in Patchak’s suit. Section
2(b)’s “relating to” standard effectively guaranteed that Patchak’s
suit would be dismissed. But “a statute does not impinge on
judicial power when it directs courts to apply a new legal standard
to undisputed facts.”
Bank Markazi, 578 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 17). “[I]t is not any the less a case or controversy
upon which a court possessing the federal judicial power may
rightly give judgment” when the arguments before the court are
“uncontested or incontestable.”
Pope v.
United
States, 323 U. S. 1, 11 (1944) .
Patchak argues that the last four words of
§2(b)—“shall be promptly dismissed”—direct courts to reach a
particular outcome. But a statute does not violate Article III
merely because it uses mandatory language. See
Seattle
Audubon, 503 U. S., at 439. Instead of directing outcomes,
the mandatory language in §2(b) “simply imposes the consequences”
of a court’s determination that it lacks jurisdiction because a
suit relates to the Bradley Property.
Miller v.
French, 530 U. S. 327, 349 (2000) ; see
McCardle, 7 Wall., at 514.[
5]
Patchak compares §2(b) to the statute this Court
held unconstitutional in
Klein. In that case, the
administrator of the estate of V. F. Wilson, a former
Confederate soldier, sued to recover the value of some cotton that
the Government had seized during the war. 13 Wall., at 132. The
relevant statute required claimants to prove their loyalty in order
to reclaim their property. Ch. 120, §3, 12Stat. 820. Wilson had
received a pardon before he died, 13 Wall., at 132, and this Court
had held that pardons conclusively prove loyalty under the statute,
see
United States v.
Padelford, 9 Wall. 531, 543
(1870). But after Wilson’s administrator secured a judgment in his
favor, 13 Wall., at 132, Congress passed a statute making pardons
proof of disloyalty and declaring that, if a claimant had accepted
one, “the jurisdiction of the court in the case shall cease, and
the court shall forthwith dismiss the suit of such claimant.” Act
of July 12, 1870, 16Stat. 235. If the court had already entered
judgment in favor of a pardoned claimant and the Government had
appealed, the statute instructed this Court to dismiss the whole
suit for lack of jurisdiction. See
ibid. Klein held
that this statute infringed the executive power by attempting to
“change the effect of . . . a pardon.”
Id., at
148.
Klein also held that the statute infringed the judicial
power, see
id., at 147, although its reasons for this latter
holding were not entirely clear.
This Court has since explained that “the statute
in
Klein infringed the judicial power, not because it left
too little for courts to do, but because it attempted to direct the
result without altering the legal standards governing the effect of
a pardon—standards Congress was powerless to prescribe.”
Bank
Markazi,
supra, at ___ (slip op., at 15). Congress had
no authority to declare that pardons are not evidence of loyalty,
so it could not achieve the same result by stripping jurisdiction
whenever claimants cited pardons as evidence of loyalty. See
Klein, 13 Wall., at 147–148. Nor could Congress confer
jurisdiction to a federal court but then strip jurisdiction from
that same court once the court concluded that a pardoned claimant
should prevail under the statute. See
id., at 146–147.
Patchak’s attempts to compare §2(b) to the
statute in
Klein are unpersuasive. Section 2(b) does not
attempt to exercise a power that the Constitution vests in another
branch. And unlike the selective jurisdiction-stripping statute in
Klein, §2(b) strips jurisdiction over every suit relating to
the Bradley Property. Indeed,
Klein itself explained that
statutes that do “nothing more” than strip jurisdiction over “a
particular class of cases” are constitutional.
Id., at 145.
That is precisely what §2(b) does.
B
Section 2(b) does not unconstitutionally
interfere with this Court’s decision in
Patchak I.
Article III, this Court explained in
Plaut, prohibits
Congress from “retroactively commanding the federal courts to
reopen final judgments.” 514 U. S., at 219. But
Patchak I did not finally conclude Patchak’s case. See
Bradley v.
School Bd. of Richmond, 416 U. S. 696
, n. 14 (1974). When this Court said that his suit “may
proceed,” 567 U. S., at 212, it meant that the Secretary’s
preliminary defenses lacked merit and that Patchak could return to
the District Court for further proceedings. It did not mean that
Congress was powerless to change the law that governs his case. As
this Court emphasized in
Plaut, Article III does not
prohibit Congress from enacting new laws that apply to pending
civil cases. See 514 U. S., at 226–227. When a new law clearly
governs pending cases, Article III does not prevent courts from
applying it because “each court, at every level, must ‘decide
according to existing laws.’ ”
Ibid. (quoting
United
States v.
Schooner Peggy, 1 Cranch 103, 109 (1801)).
This principle applies equally to statutes that strip jurisdiction.
See
Landgraf v.
USI Film Products, 511 U. S.
244, 274 (1994) ;
Kline v.
Burke Constr. Co., 260
U. S. 226, 234 (1922) ;
Hallowell v.
Commons,
239 U. S. 506, 509 (1916) . Because §2(b) expressly references
“pending” cases, it applies to Patchak’s suit. And because
Patchak’s suit is not final, applying §2(b) here does not offend
Article III.[
6]
Of course, we recognize that the Gun Lake Act
was a response to this Court’s decision in
Patchak I.
The text of the Act, after all, cites both the administrative
decision and the property at issue in that case. See §§2(a)–(b).
And we understand why Patchak would view the Gun Lake Act as
unfair. By all accounts, the Band exercised its political influence
to persuade Congress to enact a narrow jurisdiction-stripping
provision that effectively ends all lawsuits threatening its
casino, including Patchak’s.
But the question in this case is “[n]ot
favoritism, nor even corruption, but
power.”
Plaut,
supra, at 228; see also
McCardle, 7 Wall., at 514
(“We are not at liberty to inquire into the motives of the
legislature. We can only examine into its power under the
Constitution”). Under this Court’s precedents, Congress has the
power to “apply newly enacted, outcome-altering legislation in
pending civil cases,”
Bank Markazi, 578 U. S., at ___
(slip op., at 16), even when the legislation “govern[s] one or a
very small number of specific subjects,”
id., at ___ (slip
op., at 21). For example, this Court has upheld narrow statutes
that identified specific cases by caption and docket number in
their text. See
id., at ___ (slip op., at 19);
Seattle
Audubon, 503 U. S., at 440. And this Court has approvingly
cited a D. C. Circuit decision, which upheld a statute that
retroactively stripped jurisdiction over suits challenging “a
single memorial.”
Bank Markazi,
supra, at ___ (slip
op., at 22) (citing
National Coalition To Save Our Mall v.
Norton, 269 F. 3d 1092 (2001)). If these targeted
statutes did not cross the line from legislative to judicial power,
then §2(b) does not either.
IV
The dissent offers a different theory for why
§2(b) violates Article III. A statute impermissibly exercises the
judicial power, the dissent contends, when it “targets” a
particular suit and “manipulates” jurisdiction to direct the
outcome, “practical[ly] operat[es]” to affect only one suit, and
announces a legal standard that does not “imply some measure of
generality” or “preserv[e] . . . an adjudicative role for
the courts.”
Post, at 8, 11.
We doubt that the constitutional line separating
the legislative and judicial powers turns on factors such as a
court’s doubts about Congress’ unexpressed motives, the number of
“cases [that] were pending when the provision was enacted,” or the
time left on the statute of limitations.
Post, at 8. But
even if it did, we disagree with the dissent’s characterization of
§2(b). Nothing on the face of §2(b) is limited to Patchak’s case,
or even to his challenge under the Indian Reorganization Act.
Instead, the text extends to all suits “relating to” the Bradley
Property. Thus, §2(b) survives even under the dissent’s theory: It
“prospectively govern[s] an open-ended class of disputes,”
post, at 6, and its “relating to” standard “preserv[es]
. . . an adjudicative role for the courts,”
post,
at 11. While §2(b)’s “relating to” standard is not difficult to
interpret or apply, this Court’s precedents
encourage
Congress to draft jurisdictional statutes in this manner. See
Hertz Corp. v.
Friend, 559 U. S. 77, 94 (2010)
(“[A]dministrative simplic- ity is a major virtue in a
jurisdictional statute. . . . [C]ourts benefit from
straightforward rules under which they can readily assure
themselves of their power to hear a case”).[
7]
* * *
We conclude that §2(b) of the Gun Lake Act
does not violate Article III of the Constitution. The judgment of
the Court of Appeals is, therefore, affirmed.
It is so ordered.