In SEC v. Jarkesy, the US Supreme Court diminished agencies’ authority to adjudicate in house. Many commentators have warned that the decision will redirect a multitude of cases previously handled in agency adjudications to the federal judiciary, overwhelming the courts. This research finds otherwise. It reviews the concepts of private rights and public rights and surveys the agency adjudications decided each year to count the number of adjudications in either category.

Key Findings:

• Only 1 to 2 percent of administrative proceedings involve private rights in any given year. In fiscal year 2022, for which data are most comprehensive, only 1.5 percent involved private rights and thus would have been affected by Jarkesy (removed to a federal court)—and only under an unrealistically broad interpretation of the ruling. The remaining bulk of adjudications concern public rights and therefore would not have been affected.

Policy Implications:

• The separation of powers requires private rights cases—those concerning life, liberty, or property—be heard in federal court before an independent judge and jury. These are the types of cases affected by Jarkesy. Therefore, Jarkesy’s repercussions will be narrow and unlikely to touch the bulk of agencies’ adjudicative workload concerning public rights disputes, namely rights granted by government.

Download the PDF here.