Facts
- William E. Humphrey served as a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), appointed and reappointed for a fixed statutory term.
- The Federal Trade Commission Act provided that commissioners could be removed by the President only for “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested Humphrey’s resignation and, after Humphrey refused, removed him based on policy disagreement with the administration’s regulatory program.
- Humphrey later died, and his executor sought the salary allegedly due for the remainder of Humphrey’s term after the removal.
- The United States argued that the FTC Act’s removal restriction was unconstitutional because it interfered with the President’s Article II authority.
- The executor brought suit in the Court of Claims; the case reached the Supreme Court on appeal.
Issues
- Whether Congress may constitutionally restrict the President’s removal of FTC commissioners to specified for-cause grounds.
- Whether the FTC’s quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial functions permit greater insulation from presidential control than purely executive offices.
- Whether a commissioner removed solely for policy disagreement is entitled to compensation for the unexpired portion of a fixed term.
Decision
- The Supreme Court held that the FTC Act’s removal clause limited presidential removal to the specified grounds: “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”
- The Court upheld the constitutionality of those limits for FTC commissioners because the Commission’s functions were predominantly quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial rather than purely executive.
- The Court ruled that the President lacked authority to remove a commissioner solely for policy disagreement.
- The Court confined Myers v. United States to officers exercising purely executive functions and disapproved broader statements suggesting unlimited presidential removal authority over all officers.
- Because the removal was not for a statutory cause, Humphrey was treated as entitled to continue in office for the remainder of his term, and his estate could recover the unpaid salary.
Legal Principles
- Congress may provide tenure protections that restrict removal to for-cause grounds for members of certain independent, multimember commissions performing quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial functions.
- When a statute specifies exclusive grounds for removal, the President may not remove an officer covered by the statute for reasons outside those grounds.
- The constitutional scope of presidential removal power depends in part on the nature of the office; Myers does not control where the office is not purely executive.
- Statutory independence for such commissions is consistent with separation of powers when designed to prevent presidential control from compromising the body’s assigned functions.
Conclusion
The Court upheld Congress’s authority to limit the President’s removal of FTC commissioners to enumerated for-cause grounds, held that policy disagreement was not a valid basis for removal, and allowed recovery of salary for the unexpired portion of the commissioner’s fixed term.