Ramspeck et al. v. Federal Trial Examiners Conference et al. (345 U.S. 128)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided March 9, 1953 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 345 U.S. 128 · 73 S. Ct. 570
- Docket
- No. 278
- Argued
- January 9, 1953
- Decided
- March 9, 1953
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 6–3
- Majority author
- Justice Minton
- Issue area
- Civil Rights
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Minton (wrote), Justice Clark, Justice Burton, Justice R. H. Jackson, Justice Reed
- Dissenting
- Justice Douglas, Justice Frankfurter, Justice Black (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Minton delivered the opinion of the Court. The present suit was brought by the Federal Trial Examiners Conference, an unincorporated association of trial examiners, and by a number of individual trial examiners, against the members of the United States Civil Service Commission and the National Labor Relations Board. The plaintiffs, who had been appointed pursuant to § 11 of the Administrative Procedure Act, 60 Stat. 244, 5 U. S. C. § 1010, sought a declaratory judgment that certain rules relating to their promotion, compensation, tenure, and the assignment of cases, promulgated by the Civil Service Commission pursuant to § 11, were invalid, and asked that their enforcement be enjoined. The District Court held that these four rules were invalid, interpreting § 11 as requiring: (1) that hearing examiners employed by a particular federal administrative agency must be placed in the same salary grade; (2) that a hearing examiner may not be promoted from one salary grade to another within the same agency; (3) that hearing examiners must be assigned to cases in mechanical rotation without regard to the difficulty or importance of particular cases or the competence or experience of particular examiners; and (4) that the employment of hearing examiners may not be terminated by reduction in force procedures where there is a lack of work or of funds with which to pay them.…
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