CONSTITUTIONAL INTERPRETATIONS

The United States Constitution contains three separate clauses that use the phrase “shall be vested” (hereafter called “The Vesting Clauses”).  They each read as follows:

All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.

U.S. Const., Art. I, § 1.

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United  States of America.

U.S. Const., Art. II, § 1.

The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

U.S. Const., Art. III, § 1.

The perennial question these Clauses raise is what limits, if any, they impose on the respective powers of the Congress, the President, and the federal courts.

The Supreme Court may answer that question later this year, or sometime next year, in the case of Sun Valley Orchards v. DOL, 148 F. 4^th 121 (3^rd Cir. 2025) (cert. granted April 27, 2026). In that case, the United States Department of Labor (the “DOL”), imposed civil penalties and a judgment for back wages against an employer for alleged breaches of the employer’s employment contract[1] with its workers, all without involving the federal courts. The Court has tentatively agreed to decide the issue of whether Article III’s Vesting Clause prohibits the DOL, which operates under the authority of the President, from doing that.

Under its own regulations, the DOL imposes penalties on employers after it presides over an adversary hearing between itself, as the plaintiff, and an employer appearing as the defendant. The hearing officer or hearing board finds the facts of the case based upon the evidence provided by the parties, and then issues a recommendation to his, her, or its superiors in the DOL for a judgment.  Those kinds of hearings, or trials, have historically been conducted by courts-of-law, where the fact-finders are duty-bound to maintain a strict neutrality between the parties. That was particularly true in 1788, when the Constitution, and its Article III, were first adopted to form the “supreme Law of the Land” for the United States.[2] The advent of the so-called “administrative state”, with that “state’s” penchant for governmental decision-making by trained experts working for specialized administrative agencies, took a turn away from trial-by-jury and trial-by-judges in the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.   

Nevertheless, Article III has remained the same since America’s founding. The “judicial Power” that Article III grants to federal courts undoubtedly includes the power to conduct trials and issue binding verdicts based upon the facts of a case, as determined by the judge or jury. Under Article III, that “Power” must remain “vested” in federal courts, despite the perceived need in modern times for more accurate fact-finding.

So, the legal question in The Sun Valley Orchards Case is whether Article III’s  “shall be vested” phrase, either by itself or in the context of the same phrases in Articles I and II, prohibits the DOL from finding facts and issuing binding verdicts in that agency’s “administrative” trials.

It does not. The federal Administrative Procedures Act preserves the “judicial Power” of federal courts over DOL disputes by authorizing effective review by federal courts of DOL decisions coming from that agency’s own “administrative” hearings.[3] There is no smell of any divestment of “judicial Power” from the federal courts under those circumstances.[4]

The Court need go no further than this in deciding The Sun Valley Orchards Case. However, the Court can go further if it sees a need to do so. Further explained, the “shall be vested” phrase that is shared by all three of the Constitution’s Vesting Clauses simply prohibits any divestment of the “Power” granted by the Clause to the branch of the federal government named therein.  

/s/ Dan D. Rhea

[1] The employment contract here is a federally regulated “H-2A” contract in which the DOL permits an employer operating in the United States to hire foreign workers to work in the United States. The DOL’s authority to impose “penalties” on H-2A employers is granted by a statutory enactment of Congress, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1188(g)(2).

[2] See U.S. Const., Art. VI, § 2.

[3] See Administrative Procedures Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(E).

[4] After the 1600’s, the verb “vest” was used by English speakers to mean “To invest or endow with possession, . . . With reference to power or authority.” See “Vest, V., Sense I.1.b.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, March 2026. At the same time, the opposite notion of “divestment” was understood to signify the stripping “of possessions, rights, or attributes” held by a person or entity.  See “Divest, V., Sense 2.a.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, June 2026, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9581110813.