“Without removal protections, that independence would be jeopardized… Accordingly, the Court held that the FTC Act’s for-cause removal protections were constitutional,” wrote AliKhan, who was appointed to the District Court by President Biden in 2023.
Judge: Facts almost identical to 1935 case
The Supreme Court reaffirmed its Humphrey’s Executor findings in cases decided in 2010 and 2020, AliKhan wrote. “Humphrey’s Executor remains good law today. Over the span of ninety years, the Supreme Court has declined to revisit or overrule it,” she wrote. Congress has likewise not disturbed FTC commissioners’ removal protection, and “thirteen Presidents have acquiesced to its vitality,” she wrote.
AliKhan said the still-binding precedent clearly supports Slaughter’s case against Trump. “The answer to the key substantive question in this case—whether a unanimous Supreme Court decision about the FTC Act’s removal protections applies to a suit about the FTC Act’s removal protections—seems patently obvious,” AliKhan wrote. “In arguing for a different result, Defendants ask this court to ignore the letter of Humphrey’s Executor and embrace the critiques from its detractors.”
The 1935 case and the present case are similar in multiple ways, the judge wrote. “Humphrey’s Executor involved the exact same provision of the FTC Act that Ms. Slaughter seeks to enforce here: the for-cause removal protection within 15 U.S.C. § 41 prohibiting any termination except for ‘inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office,'” she wrote.
The “facts almost identically mirror those of Humphrey’s Executor,” she continued. In both Roosevelt’s removal of Humphrey and Trump’s removal of Slaughter, the president cited disagreements in priorities and “did not purport to base the removal on inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance.”
Trump and fellow defendants assert that the current FTC is much different from the 1935 version of the body, saying it now “exercises significant executive power.” That includes investigating and prosecuting violations of federal law, administratively adjudicating claims itself, and issuing rules and regulations to prevent unfair business practices.
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