Syllabus
Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
AXON ENTERPRISE, INC. v. FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 21–86. Argued November 7, 2022—Decided April 14, 2023[1]
Michelle Cochran and Axon Enterprise, Inc.—respondents in separate enforcement actions initiated in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)—each filed suit in federal district court challenging the constitutionality of the agency proceedings against them. When, as in the enforcement actions against Cochran and Axon, a Commission elects to institute administrative proceedings to address statutory violations, it typically delegates the initial adjudication to an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) with authority to resolve motions, hold a hearing, and then issue a decision. As prescribed by statute, a party objecting to the Commission proceedings makes its claims first within the Commission itself, and then (if needed) in a federal court of appeals. But the parties here sidestepped that review scheme and brought their claims in district court, seeking to enjoin the administrative proceedings. Cochran and Axon asserted that the tenure protections of the agencies’ ALJs render them insufficiently accountable to the President, in violation of separation-of-powers principles. Axon also attacked as unconstitutional the combination of prosecutorial and adjudicatory functions in the FTC. Each suit premised jurisdiction on district courts’ ordinary federal-question authority to resolve “civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.” 28 U. S. C. §1331.
- ↑ Together with No. 21–1239, Securities and Exchange Commission et al. v. Cochran, on certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
