Antonin Scalia

“ Once we determine that petitioners have no statutory right to a jury trial, we must embark on the Seventh Amendment inquiry set forth in Atlas Roofing Co. v. Occupational Safety and Health Review Comm'n, 430 U.S. 442, 97 S.Ct. 1261, 51 L.Ed.2d 464 (1977) . First, we must determine whether the matter to be adjudicated is "legal" rather than "equitable" in nature, a determination which turns on the nature of the claim and of the relief sought. If the claim and the relief are deemed equitable, we need go no further: the Seventh Amendment's jury-trial right applies only to actions at law. ”

“ Congress has exercised that power, defining actions such as the one before us to be among the "core" of bankruptcy proceedings, triable in a bankruptcy court before a bankruptcy judge and without a jury. ”

“ If no part of bankruptcy proceedings involve the adjudication of public rights, as the Court implies today, then all bankruptcy proceedings are saved from the strictures of the Seventh Amendment only to the extent that such proceedings are the descendants of earlier analogue heard in equity in 18th-century England. ”

“ Trying to read the ambiguous history concerning fraudulent conveyance actions in equity-a task which the Court finds simple today-has perplexed jurists in each era, who have come to conflicting decisions each time that the question has found relevance. ”

“ The Court's decision today ignores our statement in Atlas Roofing that "even if the Seventh Amendment would have required a jury where the adjudication of [some types of] rights is assigned to a federal court of law instead of an administrative agency," this constitutional provision does not apply when Congress assigns the adjudication of these rights to specialized tribunals where juries have no place. ”

“ The United States' lien upon the real property would be effective upon the marshal's filing of the distress warrant in the district court of the district where the property was located. The debtor could, however, bring a challenge to the distress warrant in any United States district court, in which judicial challenge "every fact upon which the legality of the extra-judicial remedy depends may be drawn in [to] question," 18 How., at 284. ”

“ As we put it in Katchen:
" ' [I] n cases of bankruptcy, many incidental questions arise in the course of administering the bankrupt estate, which would ordinarily be pure cases at law, and in respect of their facts triable by jury, but, as belonging to bankruptcy proceedings, they become cases over which the bankruptcy court, which acts as a court of equity, exercises exclusive control. Thus a claim of debt or damages against the bankrupt is investigated by chancery methods.' " Katchen, supra, at 337, 86 S.Ct., at 477 (quoting Barton v. Barbour, 104 U.S. 126, 133-134, 26 L.Ed. 672 (1881) ) . ”

“ More fundamentally, the inclusion of actions to recover fraudulently conveyed property among core bankruptcy proceedings has meaning beyond the taxonomic. As I explain in more detail below, see Part II-A, infra, we have long recognized that the forum in which a claim is to be heard plays a substantial role in determining the extent to which a Seventh Amendment jury trial right exists. ”

“ If it were not, the next phrase appearing in the Katchen decision would make little sense: " [W] hen the same issue [i.e., validity of a preference] arises as part of the process of allowance and disallowance of claims, it is triable in equity." Katchen, supra, at 336, 86 S.Ct., at 476. Katchen makes it clear that when Congress does commit the issue and recovery of a preference to adjudication in a bankruptcy proceeding, the Seventh Amendment is inapplicable. ”

“ Though the Court professes not to overrule this decision, and curiously, to be acting in reliance on it, see ante, at 57-59, there is simply no way to reconcile our decision in Katchen with what the Court holds today.
In Katchen, the petitioner filed a claim in the bankruptcy proceeding to recover funds that he alleged were due to him from a bankrupt estate; respondent, the trustee, resisted paying the claims based on § 57 (g) of the old Bankruptcy Act, which forbade payments to creditors holding "void or voidable" preferences. ”

“ Among the factors upon which we have focused are the extent to which the 'essential attributes of judicial power' are reserved to Article III courts, and, conversely, the extent to which the non-Article III forum exercises the range of jurisdiction and powers normally vested only in Article III courts, the origins and importance of the right to be adjudicated, and the concerns that drove Congress to depart from the requirements of Article III." 478 U.S., at 851, 106 S.Ct., at 3264 citing Thomas, supra, 473 U.S., at 587, 589-593, 105 S.Ct., at 3336, 3337-39. ”

“ Ante, at 60. The Court further indicates that it will pay little heed to the congressional inclusion of avoidance and recovery proceedings in core bankruptcy jurisdiction since that choice was not made "because [Congress found that] traditional rights and remedies were inadequate to cope with a manifest public problem." [4] Ibid. This misguided view of the congressional enactment is the crux of the problem with the Court's approach.
How does the Court determine that an action to recover fraudulently conveyed property is not "integrally related" to the essence of bankruptcy proceedings? ”

“ Ex parte Bakelite Corp., supra, at 451, 49 S.Ct., at 413 (public rights are those "arising between the government and others, which from their nature do not require judicial determination and yet are susceptible of it") ; Murray's Lessee v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 283, 15 L.Ed. 372 (1856) (plaintiff's argument that a controversy susceptible of judicial determination must be a "judicial controversy" heard in an Article III court "leaves out of view the fact that the United States is a party") . ”

“ C. Warren, Bankruptcy in United States History 4 (1935) . Today, the Court ignores these lessons and places a straitjacket on Congress' power under the Bankruptcy Clause: a straitjacket designed in an era, as any reader of Dickens is aware, that was not known for its enlightened thinking on debtor-creditor relations.
Indeed, the Court calls into question the longstanding assumption of our cases and the bankruptcy courts that the equitable proceedings of those courts, adjudicating creditor-debtor disputes, are adjudications concerning "public rights." See Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v. ”

“ I do not think one can preserve a system of separation of powers on the basis of such intuitive judgments regarding "practical effects," no more with regard to the assigned functions of the courts, see Mistretta v. ”

“ See Note, Congressional Provision for Nonjury Trials, 83 Yale L.J. 401, 414-415 (1973) (" [T] he Court has never rejected a congressional indication that an action is equitable in nature") ; but cf. Curtis v. Loether, supra ("re-interpreting" congressional enactment to respond to Seventh Amendment "concerns") .↑ Such cases decided since Northern Pipeline, from the Court of Appeals alone, include In re Harbour, 840 F.2d, at 1177-1178 ”