Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 29, 2020 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Decided
- June 29, 2020
- Term
- October Term 2019
- Vote
- 5–4
- Majority author
- Justice Roberts
- Issue area
- Miscellaneous
- Disposition
- Vacated and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- Federal law held unconstitutional
Opinion excerpt
B Neither Humphrey's Executor nor Morrison resolves whether the CFPB Director's insulation from removal is constitutional. Start with Humphrey's Executor. Unlike the New Deal-era FTC upheld there, the CFPB is led by a single Director who cannot be described as a "body of experts" and cannot be considered "non-partisan" in the same sense as a group of officials drawn from both sides of the aisle. 295 U.S. at 624, 55 S.Ct. 869. Moreover, while the staggered terms of the FTC Commissioners prevented complete turnovers in agency leadership and guaranteed that there would always be some Commissioners who had accrued significant expertise, the CFPB's single-Director structure and five-year term guarantee abrupt shifts in agency leadership and with it the loss of accumulated expertise. In addition, the CFPB Director is hardly a mere legislative or judicial aid. Instead of making reports and recommendations to Congress, as the 1935 FTC did, the Director possesses the authority to promulgate binding rules fleshing out 19 federal statutes, including a broad prohibition on unfair and deceptive practices in a major segment of the U. S. economy. And instead of submitting recommended dispositions to an Article III court, the Director may unilaterally issue final decisions awarding legal and equitable relief in administrative adjudications. Finally, the Director's enforcement authority…
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