Law Review: McKenzie- Getting to the Core of Stern v. Marshall: History, Expertise, and the Separation of Powers

Abstract: This Article considers the Supreme Court’s decision in Stern v. Marshall, which limited the power of a bankruptcy judge to decide a common law claim. Stern is best understood as a combination of three arguments drawn from the Court’s prior Article III cases. The first is an argument from history — the past division of labor between the Article III judiciary and non-Article III adjudicators. The second is an argument from expertise — the appropriate selection of disputes that benefit from a specialized non-Article III forum. The third is an argument from separation of powers — the limitations on when the political branches may assign disputes outside the tenured judiciary. The Article offers a critique of these arguments as problematic or paradoxical. It concludes by showing why Stern will give only limited guidance on important questions about the power of bankruptcy judges.

For a copy of the opinion, please see:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2046730