Ramspeck v. Federal Trial Examiners Conference

• Decision Date: 09 March 1953
• Docket Number: No. 278,278
• Citation: 73 S.Ct. 570,97 L.Ed. 872,345 U.S. 128
• Parties: RAMSPECK et al. v. FEDERAL TRIAL EXAMINERS CONFERENCE et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

345 U.S. 128

73 S.Ct. 570

97 L.Ed. 872

RAMSPECK et al.

v FEDERAL TRIAL EXAMINERS CONFERENCE et al.

No. 278.

Argued Jan. 9, 12, 1953.

Decided March 9, 1953.

Rehearing Denied April 6, 1953.

See 345 U.S. 931, 73 S.Ct. 778.

Mr. Robert W. Ginnane, Washington, D.C., for petitioners.

Mr. Charles S. Rhyne, Washington, D.C., for respondents.

Mr. Justice MINTON delivered the opinion of the Court.

The present suit was brought by the Federal Trial Examiners Conference,¹ 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, 5 U.S.C.A. § 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. The District Court granted a permanent injunction against the enforcement of these four Civil Service rules, 104 F.Supp. 734. The Court of Appeals affirmed in a short per curiam opinion, one judge dissenting. 91 U.S.App.D.C. 164, 202 F.2d 312. We granted certiorari, 344 U.S. 853, 73 S.Ct. 93.

Prior to the passage of the Administrative Procedure Act, hearing examiners' tenure and status were governed by the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, 5 U.S.C.A. § 661 et seq. Under the Classification Act, as employees of an agency, their classification was determined by the ratings given them by the agency, and their compensation and promotion depended upon their classification. The examiners were in a dependent status.

With the rapid growth of administrative law in the last few decades, the role of these quasi-judicial officers became increasingly significant and controversial. Many of the regulatory powers which Congress has assigned federal administrative agencies can be exercised only after notice and hearing required by the Constitution or by statute. These agencies have such a volume of business, including cases in which a hearing is required, that the agency heads, the members of boards or commissions, can rarely preside over hearings in which evidence is required. The agencies met this problem long before the Administrative Procedure Act by designating hearing or trial examiners to preside over hearings for the reception of evidence. Such an examiner generally made a report to the agency setting forth proposed findings of fact and recommended action. The parties could address to the agency exceptions to the findings, and, after receiving briefs and hearing oral argument, the agency heads would make the final decision.

Many complaints were voiced against the actions of the hearing examiners, it being charged that they were mere tools of the agency concerned and subservient to the agency heads in making their proposed findings of fact and recommendations. A study by President Roosevelt's Committee on Administrative Management resulted in a report in 1937 recommending separation of adjudicatory functions and personnel from investigative and prosecution personnel in the agencies. The Attorney General's Committee on Administrative Procedure was appointed in 1939 to study the decisional process in administrative agencies, and the final report of this Committee was published in 1941. Both the majority and minority members of the Committee recommended that hearing examiners be made partially independent of the agency by which they were employed; the majority recommended hearing examiners be appointed for a term of seven years, and the minority recommended a term of twelve years. Although extensive hearings were held on bills to carry out the recommendations of this Committee, World War II delayed final congressional action on the subject. After the war, the McCarran-Sumners Bill, which became the Administrative Procedure Act, was introduced. The Senate Judiciary Committee Print of June 1945 reveals that at that time there was still great diversity of opinion as to how the status of hearing examiners should be enhanced. Several proposals were considered, and in the final bill Congress provided that hearing examiners should be given independence and tenure within the existing Civil Service system.²

Congress intended to make hearing examiners 'a special class of semi-independent subordinate hearing officers'³ by vesting control of their compensation, promotion and tenure in the Civil Service Commission to a much greater extent than in the case of other federal employees. Section 11 is as follows:

'Subject to the civil-service and other laws to the extent not inconsistent with this act, there shall be appointed by and for each agency as many qualified and competent examiners as may be necessary for proceedings pursuant to sections 7 and 8, who shall be assigned to cases in rotation so far as practicable and shall perform no duties inconsistent with their duties and responsibilities as examiners. Examiners shall be removable by the agency in which they are employed only for good cause established and determined by the Civil Service Commission (hereinafter called the Commission) after opportunity for hearing and upon the record thereof. Examiners shall receive compensation prescribed by the Commission independently of agency recom- mendations or ratins and in accordance with the Classification Act of 1923, as amended, except that the provisions of paragraphs (2) and (3) of subsection (b) of section 7 of said act, as amended, and the provisions of section 9 of said act, as amended, shall not be applicable. Agencies occasionally or temporarily insufficiently staffed may utilize examiners selected by the Commission from and with the consent of other agencies. For the purposes of this section, the Commission is authorized to make investigations, require reports by agencies, issue reports, including an annual report to the Congress, promulgate rates, appoint such advisory committees as may be deemed necessary, recommend legislation, subpena witnesses or records, and pay witness fees as established for the United States courts.'

An examination of § 11 shows that Congress retained the examiners as classified Civil Service employees but made inapplicable to them paragraphs (2) and (3) of subsection (b) of § 7 of the Classification Act and § 9 of that Act. These sections had made the examiners dependent upon the agencies' ratings for their classification. Freed from this dependence upon the agencies, the examiners were specifically declared to be otherwise under the other provisions of the Classification Act of 1923, as amended (now the Classification Act of 1949, 5 U.S.C. (Supp. V) § 1071 et seq., 5 U.S.C.A. § 1071 et seq.).

The position of hearing examiners is not a constitutionally protected position. It is a creature of congressional enactment. The respondents have no vested right to positions as examiners. They hold their posts by such tenure as Congress sees fit to give them. Their positions may be regulated completely by Congress, or Congress may delegate the exercise of its regulatory power, under proper standards, to the Civil Service Commission, which it has done in his case.

The question we have presented is whether the Civil Service Commission in the adoption of these rules followed or departed from the directions given it by § 11 of the Administrative Procedure Act. Did it implement the statute, or did it enlarge it?

Respondents do not contend that all hearing examiners should be classified in the same grade; they contend only that all hearing examiners in any one agency should be classified in the same grade. Petitioners argue that cases in a given agency are of varying levels of difficulty and importance and that the examiners hearing them must possess varying degrees of competency and types of qualifications. Petitioners point to the experience of the Civil Aeronautics Board where there are safety cases heard by one group of examiners and economic cases heard by another. The examiners assigned to the safety cases have pilots' certificates, while those assigned to the economic cases have completely different types of qualifications. Again, certain cases before the Interstate Commerce Commission involve relatively simple applications for extensions of motor carrier certificates, while others involve complicated and difficult railroad rate proceedings. Petitioners' argument indicates the need for specialization among examiners in the same agency to meet the diverse types of cases presented.

Proceeding under the provisions of the Classification Act, the Commission still classified the examiners according to their experience, skill, and ability,⁴ but without seeking or receiving rating of the examiners by the agencies and wholly independent thereof. A classification of the examiners into grades, with salaries appropriate to each grade, was set up by the Commission in each federal agency using examiners. This classification ranged from just one grade in several agencies to five grades in two agencies. Allocation of examiners in accordance with these classifications is provided for...