Humphrey's Executor v. United States

Humphrey's Executor v. United States
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued May 1, 1935 Decided May 27, 1935
Full case name	Humphrey's Executor v. United States Rathbun, Executor v. United States
Citations	295 U.S. 602 (more) 55 S. Ct. 869; 79 L. Ed. 1611; 1935 U.S. LEXIS 1089
Holding
The President may not remove an appointee to an independent regulatory agency that is quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial in nature except for reasons that Congress has provided by law.
Court membership
Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes Associate Justices Willis Van Devanter · James C. McReynolds Louis Brandeis · George Sutherland Pierce Butler · Harlan F. Stone Owen Roberts · Benjamin N. Cardozo
Case opinion
Majority	Sutherland, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
U.S. Const. art. I; U.S. Const. art. II; Federal Trade Commission Act

Humphrey's Executor v. United States, 295 U.S. 602 (1935), was a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States that ruled that the U.S. Constitution allows the U.S. Congress to enact laws limiting the ability of the President of the United States to fire the executive officials of an independent agency that is quasi-legislative or quasi-judicial in nature.

The case involved William E. Humphrey, a commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) whom President Franklin D. Roosevelt had fired in 1933. Roosevelt had fired Humphrey over their policy disagreements involving economic regulation and the New Deal, even though the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 prohibited firing an FTC commissioner for any reason other than "inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office."