Caseflicks

Supreme Court of the United States • 1935

Humphrey's v. United States

295 U.S. 602 | 55 S. Ct. 869 | 79 L. Ed. 1611 | 1935 U.S. LEXIS 1089

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Takeaway

In short, this case upheld Congress’s power to give members of an independent, quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial agency fixed terms and protection from presidential removal except for statutory cause.

Background

William E. Humphrey was appointed to a seven-year term as a Federal Trade Commissioner, expiring in 1938. The Federal Trade Commission Act allowed the President to remove a commissioner for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” In 1933, President Roosevelt asked Humphrey to resign because they disagreed about the Commission’s policies and administration. When Humphrey refused, the President removed him without alleging any of the statutory grounds.

Humphrey maintained that the removal was invalid and that he remained entitled to his salary until his death in February 1934. His estate sued the United States in the Court of Claims to recover the unpaid salary. Rather than resolve the claim outright, the Court of Claims certified to the Supreme Court two questions: whether the Act limited removal to the listed causes and, if so, whether that limit was constitutional.

Issues

Issue #1

Whether the Federal Trade Commission Act permits the President to remove a Federal Trade Commissioner only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.

Holding

Yes. The Act restricts the President to removing a commissioner only for one or more of the specified causes.

Reasoning

The statutory text established fixed seven-year terms and then expressly provided that a commissioner “may be removed” by the President for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. Read together, these provisions showed Congress’s intent that a commissioner serve the full term unless removal was justified by a listed cause.

Shurtleff v. United States did not compel a contrary reading. That case involved an officer with no fixed term, and construing its removal clause as exclusive would effectively have created life tenure. Here, by contrast, Congress fixed definite terms, so treating the listed causes as exclusive neither created life tenure nor produced the anomalous result that concerned the Court in Shurtleff.

The FTC’s structure and legislative history confirmed the textual reading. Congress designed the Commission as a nonpartisan expert body whose members would develop experience over lengthy, staggered terms and would remain free from partisan or presidential direction. At-will removal would substantially defeat that design.

Issue #2

Whether Congress may constitutionally limit the President’s removal of Federal Trade Commissioners to removal for cause.

Holding

Yes. Congress may protect FTC commissioners from removal except for cause during their prescribed terms.

Reasoning

Myers v. United States did not control because its actual holding concerned a first-class postmaster, a purely executive officer who functioned as the President’s subordinate. Broad language in Myers about presidential removal power went beyond the question decided and therefore was not binding in this different setting.

The FTC was not an executive department or an instrument through which the President exercised constitutionally vested executive power. Its duties were predominantly quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial: it administered statutory standards governing unfair competition, investigated and reported to Congress, and could serve as a judicial aid when referred matters by a court.

Congress may create bodies that perform legislative or judicial-aid functions and require them to act independently of executive control. The authority to provide that independence includes the incidental authority to establish fixed terms and permit removal only for cause. An official removable solely at another’s pleasure cannot reliably exercise independent judgment against that official’s wishes.

The Court thus distinguished between purely executive officers, whose removal Myers recognized as subject to the President’s exclusive authority, and officers serving on independent quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial agencies. The Court left the boundary cases between those categories for future decisions.

Concurrences

Justice McReynolds

Reasoning

Justice McReynolds agreed that the statute limited removal to the enumerated causes and that the limitation was constitutional. He did not write a new opinion in this case, instead referring to his separate opinion in Myers v. United States for his broader views on presidential removal power.