1. THE VACCINE ACT AFTER OIL STATES ENERGY SERVICES, LLC V. GREENE'S ENERGY GROUP, LLC: WHY SPECIAL MASTERS SHOULD NOT BE TREATED SO SPECIAL.
- Author
-
Snyder, Jesse D. H.
- Subjects
- *
VACCINATION policies , *UNITED States appellate courts - Abstract
In April 2018, the Supreme Court handed down Oil States Energy Services, LLC v. Greene's Energy Group, LLC, a decision addressing whether adjudicative authority vested in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board, an Article 1 tribunal established by the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, violated either Article 111 or the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The Court held the establishment of that Article I tribunal did not violate Article III or the Seventh Amendment because the dispute at issue in Oil States involved public rights not existent at common law, all of which accorded Congress with authority to bypass Article III courts as the initial adjudicative forum. The Court's reasoning in Oil States provides a vehicle by which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit should reconsider its interpretation of the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 because the current interpretative regime forces petitioners to litigate claims in an Article I forum that has arrogated Article III authority over common law claims for vaccination injuries. In three Parts, this Article reviews the Vaccine Act, discusses how Oil States affects the constitutional analysis of the statute, and comments on why a deferential standard of review in favor of Article I tribunals creates a usurpation of Article III power. The conception of the Vaccine Act was to help injured children while alleviating exposure to vaccine manufacturers. However well intended, deferential review of a special master's findings of fact undermines judicial authority and hallows the promise that the people today and tomorrow enjoy no fewer rights against governmental intrusion than those who came before. The Vaccine Act, as interpreted, commandeers a preexisting common law regime and replaces it with an edifice neither contemplated nor recognized by the Constitution. Once freed from the constraint of deferential review of factual findings, the Federal Circuit can restore constitutional order to a statute fraught with complications over how to address the effects of vaccinations in the United States. The Vaccine Act will only have a clean bill of health once it adheres to constitutional strictures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2019