Wiener v. United States (1958)

Wiener, the plaintiff, sued the federal government after President Dwight Eisenhower removed him from the War Claims Commission (WCC) in 1953. The War Claims Act of 1948 created the WCC to adjudicate personal injury and property claims against the enemy arising from World War II. Commission members were to serve for the life of the WCC and the War Claims Act contained no provision for their removal. Nonetheless, Eisenhower dismissed Wiener (who had been appointed to the Commission in 1950 by President Harry Truman), justifying his action on executive prerogative and national interest. Wiener sought compensation for wages from the time of his removal to the end of the WCC's existence.

The issue in this case is whether Wiener, as a member of the WCC, served as a purely executive officer. In other words, did Wiener answer solely to the President, or did the legislation that established the WCC intend for Wiener to exercise independent judgment. An example of the former would be the Cabinet, whose members serve at the pleasure of the President. While they must answer to Congress and they are removable for perfidy, Cabinet members work for the President, who can fire them without cause, even on a whim. Contrast that situation with an independent agency such as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The President appoints members to the FCC, but they are not answerable to the executive (or anyone else). They can only be removed from of

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he legislation). Thus, as the Court saw it, the only issue was whether the WCC members were "purely executive officers," as described in Humphrey's Executor, and thus subject to removal by the President, or whether WCC members performed a quasi-judicial function that immunized them against capricious dismissal by the President. The Court found the WCC to be a judicial body because it "adjudicated according to law" by weighing the merits of each claim, and because its decisions were "not subject to review by any other official of the United States or by any court by mandamus or otherwise." The Justices concluded that Congress clearly intended to create an independent WCC, free of influence from any other branch of government. Therefore, since the President has no inherent power to remove a non-executive officer, and since Congress did not explicitly grant the President that power with regards to the WCC, Eisenhower improperly dismissed Wiener and the plaintiff was entitled to compensation. This problem actually began with Congress, which enacted flawed legislation that did not account for the possibility of removal. A simple clause addressing the instances where members could be discharged, similar to the grounds for removal f

Category: Government - W