March 26, 2004 – John Roberts Makes the Case For Judicial Minimalism

On this day in history, the United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit, decided the case of PDK Laboratories v. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (362 F.3d 786, 2004).

John Roberts, now Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court but then serving on the Court of Appeals, concurred in part with the judgment filed by Circuit Judge Randolph in a case involving the DEA’s interpretation of the regulation of ephedrine.

Chief Justice John Roberts

Judge Roberts wrote in his concurrence:

I agree with the majority that PDK has standing to seek review of DEA’s suspension order, and that the order must be vacated because it relies, in significant part, upon a conclusion that PDK violated certain export notification regulations — a conclusion that contradicted relevant agency precedent without explanation. This much is not terribly controversial; DEA conceded its error and all but conceded that this court should remand the decision on that basis. See DEA Br. 59 (“we acknowledge that, in such circumstances, the ordinary practice would be a remand to the agency”). This is a sufficient ground for deciding this case, and the cardinal principle of judicial restraint — if it is not necessary to decide more, it is necessary not to decide more — counsels us to go no further. [emphasis added]

My brethren, however, are not content with this narrow and effectively conceded basis for disposition, and instead adopt an alternative ground of far broader significance, one that precipitates disagreement among us but at the end of the day leads to the same result — vacatur and remand to the agency. I cannot go along for that gratuitous ride.”

As Chief Justice, Roberts has continued to follow the advice with which he began and ended his partial concurrence in PDK Laboratories:

I end where I began — with regret that the majority feels compelled to address far-reaching questions on which we disagree, when they are wholly unnecessary to the disposition of the case. As Justice Frankfurter once put it: ‘These are perplexing questions. Their difficulty admonishes us to observe the wise limitations on our function and to confine ourselves to deciding only what is necessary to the disposition of the immediate case.’ Whitehouse v. Illinois Central R. Co., 349 U.S. 366, 372-73, 75 S.Ct. 845, 850, 99 L.Ed. 1155 (1955).”