Whether the President could remove a member of the War Claims Commission at will when the statute created no express removal power or removal restriction.
Holding
No. The President lacked authority to remove Wiener merely because he preferred a commissioner of his own selection.
Reasoning
Humphrey's Executor sharply distinguished purely executive officers, whom the President may remove under his constitutional authority, from members of bodies intended to exercise independent judgment. For the latter category, a presidential removal power exists only when Congress can fairly be understood to have conferred it. The President's duty to execute the laws does not include authority to control officials performing functions that Congress has insulated from executive direction.
The War Claims Commission's functions were intrinsically adjudicatory. Congress gave it jurisdiction to adjudicate claims according to law, required determinations based on proof and legal considerations, and made its decisions final and not reviewable by any other federal official or court. The Commission therefore was designed to decide individual claims independently, not to act as an arm of the President in administering executive policy.
The statute's silence on removal did not create an implied at-will removal power. Congress legislated against the well-known backdrop of disputes over presidential removal and the Court's decision in Humphrey's Executor. Given the Commission's adjudicatory role and the statutory design of independence, the better inference was that Congress did not intend commissioners to serve at the President's pleasure.
The President removed Wiener for no allegation of inefficiency, misconduct, or other cause, but solely because he wanted personnel of his own selection. Allowing removal on that ground would leave an adjudicatory commissioner subject to the very executive pressure that Congress's scheme excluded. The Court therefore reversed the dismissal of Wiener's back-pay claim.