Columbus, OH – On Thursday, The Buckeye Institute joined the Cato Institute and the National Federation of Independent Business in filing an amicus brief in Leachco, Inc. v. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case and end the federal government’s use of unconstitutional in-house tribunals to harass and intimidate Americans.

“Not only does the Consumer Product Safety Commission’s structure violate the Constitution, it violates any common understanding of fairness,” said David C. Tryon, the director of litigation at The Buckeye Institute. “The agency makes its own rules, undertakes its own investigations, oversees its own hearings, imposes its own punishments, and hears appeals to its own rulings. And when the agency abuses its power, there is little accountability to elected officials.”

In the brief, amici argue that 1) the structure of the CPSC violates the “separation of powers scheme that the Constitution requires,” 2) even though the CPSC wields substantial executive power, its commissioners are shielded from accountability and removal from office, and 3) this structure and the use of in-house tribunals deprives citizens of their constitutional right to a hearing before an independent judge and jury.

Pacific Legal Foundation represents Leachco in its case to “block CPSC’s abusive and unconstitutional in-house tribunal process.”

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