The Supreme Court on Monday added two new cases, both involving the jurisdiction of federal district courts, to the merits docket for the 2022-23 term. And the justices called for the federal government’s views in two more cases, involving a school board’s responsibility for student-on-student sexual harassment and pleading requirements in cases brought under the False Claims Act.
In Securities and Exchange Commission v. Cochran, the justices agreed to decide whether federal district courts have the power to consider claims challenging the constitutionality of the commission’s administrative law proceedings.
The case was filed by Michelle Cochran, an accountant against whom the SEC brought administrative proceedings in 2016, alleging that she had failed to comply with federal auditing standards. An administrative law judge agreed that Cochran had violated federal law, fined her over $20,000, and banned her from practicing before the SEC for five years.
After the Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Lucia v. SEC, holding that the appointments of SEC ALJs violated the Constitution because they were made by the SEC’s staff rather than the commission itself, the SEC sent Cochran’s case back for a new hearing in front of a different ALJ.
Cochran went instead to a federal district court in Texas, seeking to block the administrative proceedings before the new ALJ. She argued, among other things, that restrictions on the SEC’s power to remove ALJs – who can only be terminated “for...
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