Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Newport News Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co., 514 U.S. 122, 12 (1995)

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Cite as: 514 U. S. 122 (1995)

Opinion of the Court

dena City Bd. of Ed. v. Spangler, 427 U. S. 424 (1976), and General Telephone Co. of Northwest v. EEOC, 446 U. S. 318 (1980). Brief for Petitioner 18. None of those cases is apposite. Heckman and Moe pertain to the United States' standing to represent the interests of Indians; the former holds, see 224 U. S., at 437, and the latter indicates in dictum, see 425 U. S., at 474, n. 13, that the Government's status as guardian confers standing. The third case, Spangler, supra, at 427, based standing of the United States upon an explicit provision of Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizing suit, 42 U. S. C. § 2000h-2, and the last, General Telephone Co., supra, at 325, based standing of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) upon a specific provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 authorizing suit, 42 U. S. C. § 2000e-5(f)(1). Those two cases certainly establish that Congress could have conferred standing upon the Director without infringing Article III of the Constitution; but they do not at all establish that Congress did so. In fact, General Telephone Co. suggests just the opposite, since it describes how, prior to the 1972 amendment specifically giving the EEOC authority to sue, only the "aggrieved person" could bring suit, even though the EEOC was authorized to use " 'informal methods of conference, conciliation, and persuasion' " to eliminate unlawful employment practices, 446 U. S., at 325—an authority similar to the Director's informal settlement authority here.

The second category of interest claimed to be affected by erroneous Board rulings is the Director's ability to fulfill "important administrative and enforcement responsibilities." Brief for Petitioner 18. The Director fails, however, to identify any specific statutory duties that an erroneous Board ruling interferes with, reciting instead conjectural harms to abstract and remote concerns. She contends, for example, that "incorrect claim determinations by the Board frustrate [her] duty to administer and enforce the statutory scheme in a uniform manner." Id., at 18-19. But it is impossible to

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