Stern v. Marshall

Bankruptcy: exercise of judicial power by bankruptcy courts: in Granfinanciera, S. A. v. Nordberg, 492 U. S. 33, the most recent case considering the public rights exception, the Court rejected a bankruptcy trustee’s argument that a fraudulent conveyance action filed on behalf of a bankruptcy estate against a noncreditor in a bankruptcy proceeding fell within the exception. Vickie’s counterclaim is similar. It is not a matter that can be pursued only by grace of the other branches, as in Murray’s Lessee, 18 How., at 284; it does not flow from a federal statutory scheme, as in Thomas, 473 U. S., at 584–585; and it is not “completely dependent upon” adjudication of a claim created by federal law, as in Schor, 478 U. S., at 856. This case involves the most prototypical exercise of judicial power: the entry of a final, binding judgment by a court with broad substantive jurisdiction, on a common law cause of action, when the action neither derives from nor depends upon any agency regulatory regime. If such an exercise of judicial power may nonetheless be taken from the Article III Judiciary simply by deeming it part of some amorphous “public right,” then Article III would be transformed from the guardian of individual liberty and separation of powers the Court has long recognized into mere wishful thinking; the fact that Pierce filed a proof of claim in the bankruptcy proceedings did not give the Bankruptcy Court the authority to adjudicate Vickie’s counterclaim. Initially, Pierce’s defamation claim does not affect the nature of Vickie’s tortious interference counterclaim as one at common law that simply attempts to augment the bankruptcy estate—the type of claim that, under Northern Pipeline and Granfinanciera, must be decided by an Article III court; in this case, by contrast, the Bankruptcy Court—in order to resolve Vickie’s counterclaim—was required to and did make several factual and legal determinations that were not “disposed of in passing on objections” to Pierce’s proof of claim. In both Katchen and Langenkamp, moreover, the trustee bringing the preference action was asserting a right of recovery created by federal bankruptcy law. Vickie’s claim is instead a state tort action that exists without regard to any bankruptcy proceeding; the bankruptcy courts under the 1984 Act are not “adjuncts” of the district courts. The new bankruptcy courts, like the courts considered in Northern Pipeline, do not “ma[k]e only specialized, narrowly confined factual determinations regarding a particularized area of law” or engage in “statutorily channeled factfinding functions.” 458 U. S., at 85 (plurality opinion). Whereas the adjunct agency in Crowell v. Benson “possessed only a limited power to issue compensation orders . . . [that] could be enforced only by order of the district court,” ibid., a bankruptcy court resolving a counterclaim under §157(b)(2)(C) has the power to enter “appropriate orders and judgments”—including final judgments—subject to review only if a party chooses to appeal, see §§157(b)(1), 158(a)–(b). Such a court is an adjunct of no one (U.S. S. Ct., 23.06.11, Stern v. Marshall, C.J. Roberts).

Faillite : exercice de son pouvoir juridictionnel par le Tribunal des faillites : ce Tribunal est une cour de justice au sens plein du terme.