Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. - Significance, Three Acceptable Categories, Bankruptcy

review petitioner law court

Petitioner

Northern Pipeline Co.

Respondent

Marathon Pipe Line Co.

Petitioner's Claim

That an appellate court ruling that non-Article III bankruptcy courts are unconstitutional should be dismissed.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioner

John L. Devney

Chief Lawyer for Respondent

Melvin I. Orenstein

Justices for the Court

Harry A. Blackmun, William J. Brennan, Jr. (writing for the Court), Thurgood Marshall, Sandra Day O'Connor, William H. Rehnquist, John Paul Stevens

Justices Dissenting

Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Byron R. White

Place

Washington, D.C.

Date of Decision

28 June 1982

Decision

That Article I federal bankruptcy courts were unconstitutional.

Related Cases

Ex parte Bakelite Corp., 279 U.S. 438 (1929).
Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11 (1955).
Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186 (1962).
Glidden Co. v. Zdanok, 370 U.S. 530 (1962).
Buckley v. Valeo, 42 U.S. 1 (1976).
Fullilove v. Klutznick, 448 U.S. 448 (1980).

Sources

West's Encyclopedia of American Law St. Paul, MN: West Group, 1998.

Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. - Significance

Forced Congress to abandon its relatively new method of adjudicating bankruptcy matters and reemphasized the Article III principles of an independent federal judiciary, but a greatly divided opinion by the Court failed to significantly clear up what was already a muddy issue considering jurisdiction between Article I and Article III courts. The Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co case s…

Northern Pipeline Co. v. Marathon Pipe Line Co. - Three Acceptable Categories

The plurality opinion, written by Justice Brennan, decided that the only acceptable uses of Article I, also called legislative, courts were those which had already been approved of by the Court. These fell into three categories. The first was courts in territories of the United States not within the country itself. The second exception was military court martials. The third exception, and the only…

Citing this material

Please include a link to this page if you have found this material useful for research or writing a related article. Content on this website is from high-quality, licensed material originally published in print form. You can always be sure you're reading unbiased, factual, and accurate information.

Highlight the text below, right-click, and select “copy”. Paste the link into your website, email, or any other HTML document.