Humphrey's Executor v. United States (1935)

William Humphrey was a Federal Trade Commissioner appointed by Herbert Hoover. The FTC Act allowed commissioners to be removed only for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office, but in 1933 Franklin Roosevelt fired Humphrey because their views on policy differed, telling him that the administration's aims would be carried out more effectively with people of his own choosing. Humphrey died the next year, and his executor sued for his lost salary.

On May 27, 1935, the same day it struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled against Roosevelt. Justice George Sutherland distinguished Myers v. United States, which had upheld the President's power to fire a postmaster, on the ground that the FTC was not an arm of the executive but a body exercising quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial powers, meant to be independent and nonpartisan. Congress could therefore limit the President's power to remove its members.

The decision became the constitutional foundation for independent agencies, including the SEC, FCC, NLRB, and Federal Reserve Board. Later cases narrowed it, refusing to extend its reasoning to single-director agencies in Seila Law v. CFPB in 2020. After the President removed commissioners of several independent agencies in 2025, the Supreme Court overruled the decision on June 29, 2026, holding 6 to 3 in Trump v. Slaughter that the FTC's removal protection violates the separation of powers. The Court left the Federal Reserve on separate footing.