Myers v. United States

272 U.S. 52 (1926), argued 5 Dec. 1924, reargued 13–14 Apr. 1925, decided 25 Oct. 1926 by vote of 6 to 3; Taft for the Court, Holmes, McReynolds, and Brandeis in dissent. When he was president, William Howard Taft believed that the Constitution strictly limited the chief executive's power. Yet, as chief justice, he penned one of the broadest readings of presidential power in Supreme Court history. Spawning one of the longest decisions in the Court reports, the Myers case involved a suit for back pay instituted by a postmaster summarily removed from office by President Woodrow Wilson. The enabling statute provided for removal during the four‐year term only with the advice and consent of the Senate. Whether the unpaid salary could be recovered hinged on the Court's interpretation of the power of Congress to limit the president's authority to remove lesser officials appointed by him.

Despite clear congressional authority to establish post offices and provide for the appointment and pay of postal employees, Taft, for the Court, concluded that the statute was an invasion of executive power. Taft found, in the 1789 congressional debates over the office of secretary of state, a legislative understanding that the president inherently possessed an unqualified power to remove government officials he had appointed. Taft accepted this legislative determination because he agreed with the rationale behind the conclusion. Since the president was ultimately responsible for seeing that the laws were faithfully executed, he must have the full discretion to remove all subordinates. To this Taft added that the executive article should be interpreted to promote the separation of powers; the constitutional requirement for Senate advice and consent upon appointment should not be widened by implication. Except for judges, who are appointed during good behavior, the president should have full removal discretion. That was so, Taft said, because political differences between the executive and legislative branches could well prevent the president from performing his constitutional duty of executing the laws.

The dissenters easily exposed the weakness of Taft's opinion. Justice James McReynolds, in an uncharacteristically long and thorough dissent, ridiculed the notion of an inherent executive power to remove governmental employees. Since Congress has the constitutional authority to place the appointment of lesser governmental officials in other hands than the president's and to provide for their removal, McReynolds rejected the view that vesting the president with the authority to appoint inferior officials deprived Congress of the power to limit removal.

In his dissent, Justice Louis D. Brandeis concluded that in dealing with lesser governmental officials the president must act under the authority of Congress and that the president possessed only the power the enabling act provided. Held in check by the entrenched spoils system, Congress began to address the question of the removal of governmental employees only after the Civil War. But Brandeis saw nothing in the earlier period that would contradict the consistent practice since that time. While Taft pushed the concept of separation of powers to its logical extreme, Brandeis emphasized the importance of checks and balances. Congress, Brandeis continued, was not only permitted but was obliged to protect not only government employees but also free government from arbitrary executive action.

The Myers decision was too broadly drawn. In a country where administrative agencies were proliferating, an unlimited right of presidential removal threatened the policymaking functions of Congress (see Administrative State). The unanimous Court in Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935) repudiated Taft's expansive words and ruled that where government officials performed quasi‐legislative and/or quasi‐judicial functions, those officials could be protected from arbitrary executive removal by Congress. In regard to officials performing strictly executive functions, however, Myers remains good law.

See also Appointment and Removal Power; Inherent Powers.

Bibliography

• Louis Fisher, Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President (1985)

— John E. Semonche

In 1920 President Woodrow Wilson removed Frank S. Myers, the Portland, Oregon, postmaster, without first obtaining the consent of the Senate. Myers sued in the Court of Claims, challenging the president's right to remove him. He lost, and on appeal the Supreme Court held, in Myers v. United States (272 U.S. 52 [1926]) that officers named by the president were subject to removal at his pleasure. In an opinion written by Chief Justice William Howard Taft, the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the law that had been passed in 1876 limiting removal of postmasters.

Although presidential authority to appoint carries with it the right to remove, exceptions have been made by the Court after Myers with respect to members of several independent regulatory and administrative agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission and the War Claims Commission. These exceptions apply if the Congress has decreed in the statute creating the office that removal is subject only to specific cause made explicit by the statute and if the official involved exercises adjudicatory function. The cases of Humphrey'S Executor v. United States (1935) and Wiener v. United States (1958) distinguished between officials like Myers, who exercised only ministerial and administrative authority, and those like W. E. Humphrey, a member of the Federal Trade Commission, and Wiener, a member of the War Claims Commission, who functioned in a quasi-judicial capacity.

Bibliography

Corwin, Edward S. The President: Office and Powers. New York: New York University Press, 1984.

Fisher, Louis. Constitutional Conflicts between Congress and the President. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1997.

Myers v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 5, 1923 Reargued April 13–14, 1925 Decided October 25, 1926
Full case name	Frank S. Myers, Administratrix v. United States
Citations	272 U.S. 52 (more) 47 S. Ct. 21; 71 L. Ed. 160; 1926 U.S. LEXIS 35
Prior history	Appeal from the Court of Claims
Holding
The President has the exclusive authority to remove executive branch officials.
Court membership
Chief Justice William H. Taft Associate Justices Oliver W. Holmes, Jr. · Willis Van Devanter James C. McReynolds · Louis Brandeis George Sutherland · Pierce Butler Edward T. Sandford · Harlan F. Stone
Case opinions
Majority	Taft, joined by Van Devanter, Sutherland, Butler, Sanford, Stone
Dissent	Holmes
Dissent	McReynolds
Dissent	Brandeis
Laws applied
U.S. Const.

Myers v. United States, 272 U.S. 52 (1926), was a United States Supreme Court decision ruling that the President has the exclusive power to remove executive branch officials, and does not need the approval of the Senate or any other legislative body.

In 1920, Frank S. Myers, a First-Class Postmaster in Portland, Oregon, was removed from office by President Woodrow Wilson. An 1876 federal law provided that "Postmasters of the first, second, and third classes shall be appointed and may be removed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate." Myers argued that his dismissal violated this law, and he was entitled to back pay for the unfilled portion of his four-year term.

Chief Justice William Howard Taft, writing for the Court, noted that the Constitution does mention the appointment of officials, but is silent on their dismissal. An examination of the notes of the Constitutional Convention, however, showed that this silence was intentional: the Convention did discuss the dismissal of executive-branch staff, and believed it was implicit in the Constitution that the President did hold the exclusive power to remove his staff, whose existence was an extension of the President's own authority.

The Court therefore found that the statute was unconstitutional, for it violated the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches. In reaching this decision, it also expressly found the Tenure of Office Act, which had imposed a similar requirement on other Presidential appointees and played a key role in the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, to have been invalid; it had been repealed by Congress some years before this decision.

Dissents

In a lengthy dissent, Justice McReynolds used an equally exhaustive analysis of quotes from members of the Constitutional Convention, writing that he found no language in the Constitution or in the notes from the Convention intended to grant the President the "illimitable power" to fire every appointed official, "as caprice may suggest", in the entire government with the exception of judges.

In a separate dissent, Justice Brandeis wrote that the fundamental case deciding the power of the Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison, "assumed, as the basis of decision, that the President, acting alone, is powerless to remove an inferior civil officer appointed for a fixed term with the consent of the Senate; and that case was long regarded as so deciding."

In a third dissent, Justice Holmes noted that it was within the power of Congress to abolish the position of Postmaster entirely, not to mention to set the position's pay and duties, and he had no problem believing Congress also ought to be able to set terms of the position's occupiers.

See also

• Humphrey's Executor v. United States
• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 272

External links

• Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com

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