author: Chief Justice Rehnquist

text:
    LUJAN, LABOR COMMISSIONER OF CALIFORNIA, et al. v. G & G FIRE SPRINKLERS, INC.
    No. 00-152.
    Argued February 26, 2001
    Decided April 17, 2001

      Thomas S. Kerrigan argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners.

      Jeffrey A. Lamken argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With him on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Deputy Solicitor General Kneedler, Mark B. Stern, Jacob M. Lewis, and Daniel L. Kaplan.

      Stephen A. Seideman argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations by Jonathan P. Hiatt, James B. Goppess, Scott A Kronland, and Laurence Gold; and for the Port of Oakland et al. by David L. Alexander and Christopher H. Alonzi.

   Chief Justice Rehnquist

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The California Labor Code (Code or Labor Code) authorizes the State to order withholding of payments due a contractor on a public works project if a subcontractor on the project fails to comply with certain Code requirements. The Code permits the contractor, in turn, to withhold similar sums from the subcontractor. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the relevant Code provisions violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because the statutory scheme does not afford the subcontractor a hearing before or after such action is taken. We granted certiorari, 581 U. S. 924 (2000), and we reverse.

Petitioners are the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE), the California Department of Industrial Relations, and several state officials in their official capacities. Respondent G & G Fire Sprinklers, Inc. (G & G), is a fire-protection company that installs fire sprinkler systems. G & G served as a subcontractor on several California public works projects. “Public works” include construction work done under contract and paid for in whole or part by public funds. Cal. Lab. Code Ann. § 1720 (West Supp. 2001). The department, board, authority, officer, or agent awarding a contract for public work is called the “awarding body.” § 1722 (West 1989). The California Labor Code requires that contractors and subcontractors on such projects pay their workers a prevailing wage that is determined by the State. §§1771, 1772, 1773 (West 1989 and Supp. 2001). At the time relevant here, if workers were not paid the prevailing wage, the contractor was required to pay each worker the difference between the prevailing wage and the wages paid, in addition to forfeiting a penalty to the State. § 1775 (West Supp. 2001). The awarding body was required to include a clause in the contract so stipulating. Ibid.

The Labor Code provides that “[b]efore making payments to the contractor of money due under a contract for public work, the awarding body shall withhold and retain therefrom all wages and penalties which have been forfeited pursuant to any stipulation in a contract for public work, and the terms of this chapter.” § 1727. If money is withheld from a contractor because of a subcontractor’s failure to comply with the Code’s provisions, “[i]t shall be lawful for [the] contractor to withhold from [the] subcontractor under him sufficient sums to cover any penalties withheld.” § 1729 (West 1989).

The Labor Code permits the contractor, or his assignee, to bring suit against the awarding body “on the contract for alleged breach thereof in not making . . . payment” to recover the wages or penalties withheld. §§ 1731, 1732 (West Supp. 2001). The suit must be brought within 90 days of completion of the contract and acceptance of the job. § 1730. Sueh a suit “is the exclusive remedy of the contractor or his or her assignees.” § 1782. The awarding body retains the wages and penalties "pending the outcome of the suit.” § 1731.

In 1995, DLSE determined that G & 6, as a subcontractor on three public works projects, had violated the Labor Code by failing to pay the prevailing wage and failing to keep and/or furnish payroll records upon request. DLSE issued notices to the awarding bodies on those projects, directing them to withhold from the contractors an amount equal to the wages and penalties forfeited due to G & G’s violations. The awarding bodies withheld payment from the contractors, who in turn withheld payment from G & G. The total withheld, according to respondent, exceeded $135,000. App. 68.

G & G sued petitioners in the District Court for the Central District of California. G & G sought declaratory and injunctive relief pursuant to Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U. S. C. §1983, claiming that the issuance of withholding notices without a hearing constituted a deprivation of property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The District Court granted respondent’s motion for summary judgment, declared §§ 1727, 1730-1733, 1775, 1776(g), and 1813 of the Labor Code unconstitutional, and enjoined the State from enforcing these provisions against respondent App. to Pet. for Cert. A85-A87. Petitioners appealed.

A divided panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed. G & G Fire Sprinklers, Inc. v. Bradshaw, 156 F. 3d 893, 898 (1998) (Bradshaw I). The court concluded that G&G “has a property interest in being paid in full for the construction work it has completed,” id., at 901, and found that G&G was deprived of that interest “as a result of the state’s action,” id., at 903. It decided that because subcontractors were “afforded neither a pre- nor post-deprivation hearing when payments [were] withheld,” the statutory scheme violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id., at 904.

Following Bradshaw I, we decided American Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40 (1999), where respondents also alleged a deprivation of property without due process of law, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Sullivan involved a challenge to a private insurer’s decision to withhold payment for disputed medical treatment pending review of its reasonableness and necessity, as authorized by state law. We held that the insurer’s action was not “fairly attributable to the State,” and that respondents therefore failed to satisfy a critical element of their §1988 claim. Id., at 58. We also decided that because state law entitled respondents to reasonable and necessary medical treatment, respondents had no property interest in payment for medical treatment not yet deemed to meet those criteria. Id., at 61. We granted certiorari in Bradshaw I, vacated the judgment of the Court of Appeals, and remanded for reconsideration in light of Sullivan. Bradshaw v. G & G Fire Sprinklers, Inc., 526 U. S. 1061 (1999).

On remand, the Court of Appeals reinstated its prior judgment and opinion, again by a divided vote. The court held that the withholding of payments was state action because it was “specifically directed by State officials ... [and] the withholding party has no discretion.” G&G Fire Sprinklers, Inc. v. Bradshaw, 204 F. 3d 941, 944 (CA9 2000). In its view, its prior opinion was consistent with Sullivan because it “specifically held that G & 6 did not have a right to payment of the disputed funds pending the outcome of whatever Mnd of hearing, would be afforded,” and “explicitly authorized the withholding of payments pending the hearing.” 204 F. 3d, at 943. The court explained that G & G’s rights were violated not because it was deprived of immediate payment, but “because the California statutory scheme afforded no hearing at all when state officials directed that payments be withheld.” Id., at 943-944.

Where a state law such as this is challenged on due process grounds, we inquire whether the State has deprived the claimant of a protected property interest, and whether the State’s procedures comport with due process. Sullivan, supra, at 59. We assume, without deciding, that the withholding of money due respondent under its contracts occurred under color of state law, and that, as the Court of Appeals concluded, respondent has a property interest of the kind we considered in Logan v. Zimmerman Brush Co., 455 U.S. 422 (1982), in its claim for payment under its contracts. 204 F. 3d, at 943-944. Because we believe that California law affords respondent sufficient opportunity to pursue that claim in state court, we conclude that the California statutory seheme does not deprive G & G of its claim for payment without due process of law. See Logan, supra, at 433 (“[T]he Due Process Clause grants the aggrieved party the opportunity to present his case and have its merits fairly judged”).

The Court of Appeals relied upon several of our cases dealing with claims of deprivation of a properly interest without due process to hold that G & G was entitled to a reasonably prompt hearing when payments were withheld. Bradshaw I, supra, at 903-904 (citing United States v. James Daniel Good Real Property, 510 U.S. 43 (1993); FDIC v. Mallen, 486 U.S. 230 (1988); Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55 (1979)). In Good, we held that the Government must afford the owner of a house subject to forfeiture as property used to commit or to facilitate commission of a federal drug offense notice and a hearing before seizing the property. 510 U. S., at 62. In Barchi, we held that a racetrack trainer suspended for 15 days on suspicion of horse drugging was entitled to a prompt postdeprivation administrative or judicial hearing. 448 U.S., at 63-64. And in Mallen, we held that the president of a Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insured bank suspended from office by the FDIC was accorded due process by a notice and hearing procedure which would render a decision within 90 days of the suspension. 486 U.S., at 241-243. See also Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp. of Bay View, 395 U.S. 337 (1969) (holding that due process requires notice and a hearing before wages may be garnished).

In each of these cases, the claimant was denied a right by virtue of which he was presently entitled either to exercise ownership dominion over real or personal property, or to pursue a gainful occupation. Unlike those claimants, respondent has not been denied any present entitlement. G&G has been deprived of payment that it contends it is owed under a contract, based on the State’s determination that G&G failed to comply with the contract’s terms. G&G has only a claim that it did comply with those terms and therefore that it is entitled to be paid in full. Though we assume for purposes of decision here that G&G has a property interest in its claim for payment, see supra, at 195, it is an interest, unlike the interests discussed above, that can be fully protected by an ordinary breaeh-of-contraet suit.

In Cafeteria & Restaurant Workers v. McElroy, 367 U.S. 886, 895 (1961) (citations omitted), we said:

“The very nature of due process negates any concept of inflexible procedures universally applicable to every imaginable situation. ‘“[D]ue process,” unlike some legal rules, is not a technical conception with a fixed content unrelated to time, place and circumstances.’ It is ‘compounded of history, reason, the past course of decisions....’”

We hold that if California makes ordinary judicial process available to respondent for resolving its contractual dispute, that process is due process.

The California Labor Code provides that “the contractor or his or her assignee” may sue the awarding body “on the contract for alleged breach thereof” for “the recovery of wages or penalties.” §§1731, 1732 (West Supp. 2001). There is no basis here to conclude that the contractor would refuse to assign the right of suit to its subcontractor. In fact, respondent stated at oral argument that it has sued awarding bodies in state superior court pursuant to §§ 1731-1733 of the Labor Code to recover payments withheld on previous projects where it served as a subcontractor. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 27, 40-41, 49-50. Presumably, respondent brought suit as an assignee of the contractors on those projects, as the Code requires. §1732 (West Supp. 2001). Thus, the Labor Code, by allowing assignment, provides a means by which a subcontractor may bring a claim for breach of contract to recover wages and penalties withheld.

Respondent complains that a suit under the Labor Code is inadequate because the awarding body retains the wages and penalties “pending the outcome of the suit,” §1731, which may last several years. Tr. of Oral Arg. 51. A lawsuit of that duration, while undoubtedly something of a hardship, cannot be said to deprive respondent of its claim for payment under the contract. Lawsuits are not known for expeditiously resolving claims, and the standard practice in breach-of-contract suits is to award damages, if appropriate, only at the conclusion of the case.

Even if respondent could not obtain assignment of the right to sue the awarding body under the contract, it appears that a suit for breach of contract against the contractor remains available under California common law. See 1 B. Witkin, Summary of California Law §§791, 797 (9th ed. 1987) (defining breach as the “unjustified or unexeused . . . failure to perform a contract” and describing the remedies available under state law). To be sure, § 1732 of the Labor Code provides that suit on the contract against the awarding body is the “exclusive remedy of the contractor or his or her assignees” with respect to recovery of withheld wages and penalties. § 1732 (West Supp. 2001). But the remedy is exclusive only with respect to the contractor and his assignees, and thus by its terms not the exclusive remedy for a subcontractor who does not receive assignment. See, e. g., J & K Painting Co., Inc. v. Bradshaw, 45 Cal. App. 4th 1394, 1402, 53 Cal. Rptr. 2d 496, 501 (1996) (allowing subcontractor to challenge Labor Commissioner’s action by petition for a writ of the mandate).

In J & K Painting, the California Court of Appeal rejected the argument that §1732 requires a subcontractor to obtain an assignment and that failure to do so is “fatal to any other attempt to secure relief.” Id., at 1401, n. 7, 53 Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 501, n. 7. The Labor Code does not expressly impose such a requirement, and that court declined to infer an intent to “create remedial exclusivity” in this context. Ibid. It thus appears that subcontractors like respondent may pursue their claims for payment by bringing a standard breach-of-eontraet suit against the contractor under California law. Our view is necessarily tentative, since the final determination of the question rests in the hands of the California courts, but respondent has not convinced us that this avenue of relief is closed to it. See id., at 1401, and n. 4, 53 Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 500, and n. 4 (noting that the contractor might assert a variety of defenses to the subcontractor’s suit for breach of contract without evaluating their soundness). As the party challenging the statutory withholding scheme, respondent bears the burden of demonstrating its unconstitutionality. Cf. INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 944 (1983) (statutes presumed constitutional). We therefore conclude that the relevant provisions of the California Labor Code do not deprive respondent of property without due process of law. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed.

It is so ordered.

       The Code also imposes restrictions on recordkeeping and working hours, and at the time relevant here, the contractor was similarly penalized if the contractor or subcontractor failed to comply with them. Cal. Lab. Code Ann. §§ 1776(a), (b), (g) (West Supp. 2001), 1813 (West 1989). The awarding body was required to include a dause in the contract so stipulating. §§ 1776(h), 1813.
      Sections 1775, 1776, and 1813 were subsequently amended to provide that both contractors and subcontractors may be penalized for failure to comply with the Labor Code. §§ 1775(a), 1776(g), 1813 (West Supp. 2001). Amendments to §1775 also state that either the contractor or the subcontractor may pay workers the difference between the prevailing wage and wages paid. § 1775(a).

       Amendments to the Labor Code effective July 1, 2001, impose additional requirements on contractors. See § 1727(b) (West Supp. 2001) (contractor shall withhold money from subcontractor at request of Labor Commissioner in certain circumstances); § 1775(b)(3) (contractor shall take corrective action to halt subcontractor’s failure to pay prevailing wages if aware of the failure or be subject to penalties).

       Sections 1730-1733 of the Code have been repealed, effective July 1, 2001. Section 1742 has replaced them. It provides that “[a]n affected contractor or subcontractor may obtain review of a civil wage and penalty assessment [under the Code3 by transmitting a written request to the office of the Labor Commissioner.” § 1742(a). The contractor or subcontractor is then entitled to a hearing before the Director of Industrial Relations, who shall appoint an impartial hearing officer. 'Within 45 days of the hearing, the director shall issue a written decision affirming, modifying, or dismissing the assessment. A contractor or subcontractor may obtain review of the director’s decision by filing a petition for a writ of the mandate in state superior court. §§ 1742(b), (e). These provisions are not yet in effect and these procedures were not available to respondent at the time of the withholding of payments at issue here.


source: Caselaw Access Project

author: Justice Ginsburg Justice Scalia,

license: Public Domain

text:
    UNITED STATES v. CLEVELAND INDIANS BASEBALL CO.
    No. 00-203.
    Argued February 27, 2001
    Decided April 17, 2001

      James A. Feldman argued the cause for the United States. With him on the briefs were Acting Solicitor General Underwood, former Solicitor General Waxman, Acting Assistant Attorney General Junghans, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Kent L. Jones, Kenneth L. Greene, and Robert W. Metzler.

      Carter G. Phillips argued the cause for respondent. With him on the brief were Richard D. Bernstein, Stephen B. Kin-naird, and Anne Berleman Kearney.

        Lawrence T. Perera filed a brief for the Major League Baseball Players Association as amicus curiae urging affirmance.

   Justice Ginsburg

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act (FUTA) impose excise taxes on employee wages to fund Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment compensation programs. This case concerns the application of FICA and FUTA taxes to payments of back wages. The Internal Revenue Service has consistently maintained that, for tax purposes, backpay awards should be attributed to the year the award is actually paid. Respondent Cleveland Indians Baseball Company (Company) urges, and the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held, that such awards must be allocated, as they are for purposes of Social Security benefits eligibility, to the periods in which the wages should have been paid. According due respect to the Service’s reasonable, longstanding construction of the governing statutes and its own regulations, we hold that back wages are subject to FICA and FUTA taxes by reference to the year the wages are in fact paid.

I

Pursuant to a settlement of grievances asserted by the Major League Baseball Players Association concerning players’ free agency rights, several Major League Baseball clubs agreed to pay $280 million to players with valid claims for salary damages. Under the agreement, the Company owed 8 players a total of $610,000 in salary damages for 1986, and it owed 14 players a total of $1,457,848 in salary damages for 1987. The Company paid the awards in 1994. No award recipient was a Company employee in that year.

This ease concerns the proper PICA and PUTA tax treatment of the 1994 payments. Under PICA, both employees and employers must pay tax on wages to fund Social Security and Medicare; under PUTA, employers (but not employees) must pay tax on wages to fund unemployment benefits. For purposes of this litigation, the Government and the Company stipulated that the settlement payments awarded to the players qualify as “wages” within the meaning of PICA and PUTA. The question presented is whether those payments, characterized as back wages, should be taxed by reference to the year they were actually paid (1994), as the Government urges, or by reference to the years they should have been paid (1986 and 1987), as the Company and its supporting amicus, the Major League Baseball Players Association, contend.

In any given year, the amount of FICA and PUTA tax owed depends on two determinants. The first is the tax rate. 26 U. S. C. §§ 3101,3111 (PICA), § 3301 (PUTA). The second is the statutory ceiling on taxable wages (also called the wage base), which limits the amount of annual wages subject to tax. § 3121(a)(1) (PICA), § 3306(b)(1) (PUTA). Both determinants have increased over time. In 1986, the Social Security tax on employees and employers was 5.7 percent on wages up to $42,000; in 1987, it was 5.7 percent on wages up to $43,800; and in 1994, 6.2 percent on wages up to $60,600. Although the Medicare tax on employees and employers remained constant at 1.45 percent from 1986 to 1994, the taxable wage base rose from $42,000 in 1986 to $43,800 in 1987, and by 1994, Congress had abolished the wage ceiling, thereby subjecting all wages to the Medicare tax. In 1986 and 1987, the FUTA tax was 6.0 percent on wages up to $7,000; in 1994, it was 6.2 percent on wages up to $7,000.

In this case, allocating the 1994 payments back to 1986 and 1987 works to the advantage of the Company and its former employees. The reason is that all but one of the employees who received back wages in 1994 had already collected wages from the Company exceeding the taxable maximum in 1986 and 1987. Because those employees as well as the Company paid the maximum amount of employment taxes chargeable in 1986 and 1987, allocating the 1994 payments back to those years would generate no additional FICA or FUTA tax liability. By contrast, treating the back wages as taxable in 1994 would subject both the Company and its former employees to significant tax liability. The Company paid none of the employees any other wages in 1994, and FICA and FUTA taxes attributable to that year would be calculated according to tax rates and wage bases higher than their levels in 1986 and 1987.

Uncertain about the proper rule of taxation, the Company paid its share of employment taxes on the back wages according to 1994 tax rates and wage bases. Its FICA payment totaled $99,382, and its FUTA payment totaled $1,008. After the Internal Revenue Service denied its claims for a refund of those payments, the Company initiated this action in District Court, relying on Bowman v. United States, 824 F. 2d 528 (CA6 1987). In Bowman, the Sixth Circuit held that "[a] settlement for back wages should not be allocated to the period when the employer finally pays but ‘should be allocated to the periods when the regular wages were not paid as usual.’ ” Id., at 530 (quoting Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U.S. 358, 370 (1946)). The District Court, bound by Bowman, entered judgment for the Company and ordered the Government to refund $97,202 in FICA and FUTA taxes.

On appeal, the Government observed that two Courts of Appeals have held, in disagreement with Bowman, that under the law as implemented by Treasury Regulations, wages are to be taxed for FICA purposes in the year they are actually received. Walker v. United States, 202 F. 3d 1290, 1292-1293 (CA10 2000) (finding Nierotko “inapposite” and Bowman “unpersuasive”); Hemelt v. United States, 122 F. 3d 204, 210 (CA4 1997) (finding it “clear under the Treasury Regulations that ‘wages’ are to be taxed for FICA purposes in the year in which they are received”). The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit nevertheless affirmed on the authority of Bowman. 215 F. 3d 1325 (2000) (judgt. order).

We granted certiorari to resolve the conflict among the Courts of Appeals, 531 U.S. 943 (2000), and now reverse the Sixth Circuit’s judgment.

II

The Internal Revenue Code imposes employment taxes “on every employer ... equal to [a percentage of] wages ... paid by him with respect to employment.” 26 U.S.C. §§ 3111(a), 3111(b), 3301. The Social Security tax provision, § 3111(a), contains a table prescribing tax rates applicable to “wages paid during” each year from 1984 onward (e. g., “In cases of wages paid during . .. 1990 or thereafter . .. [t]he rate shall be . . . 6.2 percent.”). The Medicare tax provision, § 3111(b)(6), says “with respect to wages paid after December 31,1985, the rate shall be 1.45 percent.” And the FUTA tax provision, 26 U. S. C. §3301 (1994 ed., Supp. IV), says the rate shall be “6.2 percent in the case of calendar years 1988 through 2007... of the total wages (as defined in section 3306(b)) paid by [the employer] during the calendar year.”

Section 3121(a) of the Code establishes the annual ceiling on wages subject to Social Security tax. It does so by defining “wages” to exclude any remuneration “paid to [an] individual by [an] employer during [a] calendar year” that exceeds “remuneration . . . equal to the contribution and benefit base ... paid to [such] individual by [such] employer during the calendar year with respect to which such contribution and benefit base is effective.” Section 3306(b)(1) similarly limits annual wages subject to FUTA tax by excluding from “wages” any remuneration “paid to [an] individual by [an] employer during [a] calendar year” that exceeds “remuneration... equal to $7,000... paid to [such] individual by [such] employer during [the] calendar year.”

Both sides in this controversy have offered plausible interpretations of Congress’ design. We set out next the parties’ positions and explain why we ultimately defer to the Internal Revenue Service’s reasonable, consistent, and longstanding interpretation of the FICA and FUTA provisions in point. Under that interpretation, wages must be taxed according to the year they are actually paid.

A

In the Government’s view, the text of the controlling FICA and FUTA tax provisions explicitly instructs that employment taxes shall be computed by applying the tax rate and wage base in effect when wages are actually paid. In particular, the Government calls attention to the statute’s constant references to wages paid during a calendar year as the touchstone for determining the applicable tax rate and wage base. 26 U. S. C. § 3111(a) (setting Social Security tax rates for “wages paid during” particular calendar years); § 3121(a) (defining Social Security wage base in terms of “remuneration... paid... during the calendar year”); § 3301 (setting FUTA tax rate as a percentage of “wages . . . paid . . . during the calendar year”); § 3306(b)(1) (defining FUTA wage base in terms of “remuneration . . . paid . . . during any calendar year”). The meaning of this language, the Government contends, is plain: Wages are taxed according to the calendar year they are in fact paid, regardless of when they should have been paid.

In support of this reading, the Government observes that Congress chose the words in the current statute specifically to replace language in the original 1935 Social Security Act providing that FICA and FUTA tax rates applied to wages paid or received “with respect to employment during the calendar year” Social Security Act (1935 Act), §§801, 804, 901, 49 Stat. 636-637, 639 (emphasis added). The Treasury Department had interpreted this 1935 language to mean that wages are taxed at “the rate in effect at the time of the performance of the services for which the wages were paid.” Treas. Regs. 91, Arts. 202, 302 (1936) (emphasis added). In 1939, Congress amended the 1935 Act to provide that PICA and FUTA tax rates would no longer apply on the basis of when services were performed, but would instead apply “with respect to wages paid during the calendar yea[r]." Social Security Act Amendments of 1939 (1939 Amendments), §§604, 608, 53 Stat. 1383, 1387 (emphasis added). This 1939 language remains essentially unchanged in the current PICA and PUTA tax provisions, 26 U. S. C. §§ 3111(a) and 3301.

Acknowledging that the 1939 Amendments established a “wages paid” rule for PICA and PUTA taxation, the Company nevertheless argues that Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U.S. 358 (1946), undermines the Government’s plain language argument. According due weight to our precedent, we agree.

In Nierotko, the National Labor Relations Board had ordered the reinstatement of a wrongfully discharged employee with “back pay” covering wages lost during the period from February 1937 to September 1939. Id., at 359. The employer paid the award in July 1941. Id., at 359-360. The primary question presented and aired in the Court’s opinion was whether backpay for a time in which the employee was not on the job should nevertheless count as “wages” in determining the employee’s eligibility for Social Security benefits. Id., at 359. Notwithstanding the contrary view of the Social Security Board and the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Court held that backpay covering the wrongful discharge period met the definition of “wages” in the 1935 Act. Id., at 360-370.

In the final two paragraphs of the Nierotko opinion, the Court took up the question of how the backpay award should be allocated for purposes of determining the worker’s eligibility for benefits. As originally enacted, the Social Security Act extended benefits to persons over 65 who had earned at least $2,000 in wages in each of any five years after 1936. 1935 Act, §§ 201(a), 210(e), 49 Stat. 622,625. In 1939, however, Congress introduced a new scheme, which remains in place today, tying eligibility for benefits to the number of calendar-year “quarters of coverage” accumulated by an individual. 1939 Amendments, §§ 209(g), (h), 53 Stat. 1376-1377 (codified at 42 U.'S. C. §§ 413(a)(2), 414). Section 209(g) defined a “quarter of coverage” as either “a calendar quarter in which the individual has been paid not less than $50 in wages” or any quarter except the first “where an individual has been paid in a calendar year $3,000 or more in wages.” 53 Stat. 1377.

Nierotko swiftly dispatched the question whether “‘back pay’ must be allocated as wages... to the ‘calendar quarters’ of the year in which the money would have been earned, if the employee had not been wrongfully discharged.” 327 U. S., at 370. Rejecting the Government’s argument that such allocation was impermissible because the 1939 Amendments to the benefits scheme refer to “ ‘wages’ to be ‘paid’ in certain ‘quarters,’” id., at 370, and n. 25 (citing id., at 362, n.7 (citing § 209(g))), the Court concluded: “If, as we have held above, ‘back pa/ is to be treated as wages, we have no doubt that it should be allocated to the periods when the regular wages were not paid as usual.” Id., at 370.

Although the allocation question in Nierotko was a secondary issue addressed summarily by the Court, we think the Company is correct that Nierotko undercuts the plain meaning argument urged by the Government here. Nierotko found no conflict between an allocation-back rule for backpay and the language in § 209(g) tying benefits eligibility to the number of calendar quarters “in which” a minimum amount of “wages” “has been paid.” The Court’s allocation holding for benefits eligibility purposes, which the Government does not urge us to overrule, Tr. of Oral Arg. 9, thus turned on an implicit construction of §209(g)’s terms — “wages” “paid” “in” “a calendar quarter” — to include “regular wages” that Should have been paid but “were not paid as usual,” 327 U. S., at 370. Given this construction of § 209(g), now codified in 42 U. S. C. § 413(a)(2), we cannot say that the FICA and FUTA provisions prescribing tax rates based on wages paid during a calendar year, codified in 26 U. S. G. §§ 3111(a), 3301, have a plain meaning that precludes allocation of back-pay to the year it should have been paid. Gf. Hilton v. South Carolina Public Railways Comm’n, 502 U.S. 197, 205 (1991) (“stare decisis is most compelling” where “a pure question of statutory construction” is involved).

B

From here, we part ways with the Company. Although we agree that Nierotko blocks the Government’s argument that the “wages paid” formulation in 26 U. S. C. §§ 3111(a) and 3301 has a dispositively plain meaning, we reject the Company’s next contention. Because Nierotko read the 1939 “wages paid” language for benefits eligibility purposes to accommodate an allocation-back rule for backpay, the Company urges, the identical 1939 “wages paid” language for tax purposes must be read the same way. We do not agree that the latter follows from the former like the night, the day.

Nierotko dealt specifically and only with Social Security benefits eligibility, not with taxation. The Court’s allocation holding in Nierotko in all likelihood reflected concern that the benefits scheme created in 1939 would be disserved by allowing an employer’s wrongdoing to reduce the quarters of coverage an employee would otherwise be entitled to claim toward eligibility. No similar concern underlies the tax provisions. Although Social Security taxes are used to pay for Social Security benefits in the aggregate, there is no direct relation between taxes and benefits at the level of an individual employee. As the Company itself acknowledges, “Social Security tax ‘contributions,’ unlike private pension contributions, do not create in the contributor a property right to benefits against the government, and wages rather than [tax] contributions are the statutory basis for calculating an individual’s benefits.” Brief for Respondent 14.

Nierotko thus does not compel symmetrical construction of the “wages paid” language in the discrete taxation and benefits eligibility contexts. Although we generally presume that “identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning,” Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers, Inc. v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 433 (1932), the presumption “is not rigid,” and “the meaning [of the same words] well may vary to meet the purposes of the law,” ibid. Cf. Cook, “Substance” and “Procedure” in the Conflict of Laws, 42 Yale L. J. 333,337 (1933) (“The tendency to assume that a word which appears in two or more legal rules, and so in connection with more than one purpose, has and should have precisely the same scope in all of them . . . has all the tenacity of original sin and must constantly be guarded against.”). The benefits scheme delineated in Title 42 would “no doubt” be set awry without an allocation-back rule for back wages, notwithstanding “accounting difficulties.” Nierotko, 327 U.S., at 370. But that surely cannot be said for the taxation scheme described in Title 26, where Congress’ evident concern was not worker eligibility for benefits, but fiscal administrability.

The 1989 Amendments adopting the "wages paid” rule for taxation reflected Congress’ worry that, as tax rates increase from year to year, "difficulties and confusion” would attend the taxation of wages payable in one year, but not actually paid until another year. S. Rep. No. 734, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 75-76; see also H. R. Rep. No. 728, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 57-58. Congress understood that an employee’s annual compensation may be “based on a percentage of profits, or on future royalties, the amount of which cannot be determined until long after the close of the year.” S. Rep. No. 734, 76th Cong, 1st Sess., at 75. Requiring employers to "estimate unascertained amounts and pay taxes and contributions on that basis” would “cause a burden on employers and administrative authorities alike.” Id., at 75-76. Congress correctly anticipated that "[t]he placing of [FICA and FUTA] tax[es] on the ‘wages paid’ basis [would] relieve this situation.” Id., at 76. "Under the amendment the rate applicable would be the rate in effect at the time that the wages are paid and received without reference to the rate which was in effect at the time the services were performed.” H. R. Rep. No. 728, supra, at 58.

As an additional ground for construing the tax and benefits provisions in pari materia, the Company insists that Congress incorporated Nierotko’s treatment of backpay into the tax provisions when it amended the Social Security Act shortly after Nierotko was decided. Prior to 1946, the FICA and FUTA wage bases had been defined in terms of remuneration "paid... with respect to employment during” a given year. 1935 Act, § 811(a), 49 Stat. 639 (FICA); 1939 Amendments, §606, 53 Stat. 1383 (FUTA). Paralleling the 1939 Amendments to the tax rate provisions, Congress in 1946 established the current “wages paid” rule for identifying the wages that compose the FICA and FUTA wage bases in a given year. Social Security Act Amendments of 1946 (1946 Amendments), §§412, 414, 60 Stat. 989-991 (codified at 26 U. S. C. §§ 3121(a), 3306(b)(1)). The 1946 law amended § 209(a), which defines the Social Security wage base for purposes of benefits calculation, by adopting the “wages paid” language already present in § 209(g), the provision construed in Nierotko. §414, 60 Stat. 990-991. Congress also used identical “wages paid” language in redefining, the FICA and FUTA wage bases for tax purposes. §412, 60 Stat. 989. Relying on the presumption that § 209(a), as amended, incorporated Nierotko’s construction of § 209(g), see Cannon v. University of Chicago, 441 U. S. 677, 696-699 (1979), and observing that Congress redefined the wage bases for taxation to “eonforjm] with the changes in section 209(a),” S. Rep. No. 1862,79th Cong., 2d Sess., 36 (1946); H. R. Rep. No. 2447, 79th Cong., 2d Sess., 35 (1946), the Company urges that the amended benefits and tax provisions codified Nierotko’s backpay allocation rule.

We are unpersuaded. Even assuming that the benefits provision, § 209(a), is properly construed as incorporating Nierotko’s reading of § 209(g), we think the “conformity]” Congress sought to achieve between the tax and benefits provisions, S. Rep. No. 1862, supra, at 36; H. R. Rep. No. 2447, supra, at 35, had nothing to do with Nierotko’s treatment of backpay. The Committee Reports make clear that Congress’ purpose in amending the FICA and FUTA wage bases was to define the “yardstick” for measuring “wages” as “the amount paid during the calendar year..., without regard to the year in which the employment occurred.” S. Rep. No. 1862, supra, at 35 (emphasis added); H. R. Rep. No. 2447, supra, at 35 (emphasis added). It is with respect to this rule — measuring “wages” based on “the amount paid during the calendar year” — that Congress sought conformity between the Title 26 tax provisions and the Title 42 benefits provision. See S. Rep. No. 1862, supra, at 36 (tax wage base), 37 (benefits wage base); H. R. Rep. No. 2447, supra, at 35 (tax wage base), 36 (benefits wage base). Far from indicating an intent to codify Nierotko, those Reports suggest that Congress, if it considered Nierotko at all, considered it an exception to the general rule for measuring “wages” in a given year. Because the concern that animates Nierotko’s treatment of backpay in the benefits context has no relevance to the tax side, swpra, at 212-213, it makes no sense to attribute to Congress a desire for conformity not only with respect to the general rule for measuring “wages,” but also with respect to Nierotko’s backpay exception.

C

Were the Company to rely solely on arguments for symmetry in statutory construction, we would be inclined to conclude, given Nierotko’s lack of concern with taxation, that the tax provisions themselves, informed by legislative purpose, require back wages to be taxed according to the year they are actually paid. But the Company has one more arrow in its quiver.

Apart from its arguments for symmetry, the Company contends that the Government’s refusal to allocate back wages to the year they should have been paid creates inequities in, taxation and incentives for strategic behavior that Congress did not intend. This contention is not without force. Under the Government’s rule, an employee who should have been paid $100,000 in 1986, but is instead paid $50,000 in 1986 and $50,000 in backpay in 1994, would owe more tax than if she had been paid the full $100,000 due in 1986. Conversely, a wrongdoing employer who should have paid an employee $50,000 in each of five years covered by a $250,000 backpay award would pay only one year’s worth of employment taxes (limited by the annual ceilings on taxable wages) in the year the award is actually paid. The Government’s rule thus appears to exempt some wages that should be taxed and to tax some wages that should be exempt.

Applying the Government’s rule to other provisions of the Code produces similar anomalies. Section 3121(a)(4), for example, exempts disability benefits from FICA tax if paid by an employer to an employee more than six months after the employee worked for the employer. 26 U. S. C. § 3121(a)(4). Disability benefits included in a backpay award would be exempt from FICA tax if the employee had not worked for the employer for six months prior to the backpay award, even if the benefits should have been paid within six months after the employee stopped working for the employer. According to the Company, such results amount to tax windfalls and invite employers wrongfully to withhold pay or benefits in order to reap the advantages of a strategically timed payment. See Brief for Respondent 33-40 (additional examples of windfalls and avoidance schemes). These outcomes may be avoided, the Company argues, by construing the tax provisions to require taxation of back wages according to the year the wages should have been paid.

It is, of course, true that statutory construction “is a holistic endeavor” and that the meaning of a provision is “clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme . . . [when] only one of the permissible meanings produces a substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law.” United Sav. Assn. of Tex. v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Associates, Ltd., 484 U. S. 365, 871 (1988). The Company’s examples leave little doubt that the Government’s rule generates a degree of arbitrariness in the operation of the tax statutes. But in Nierotko’s context, an inflexible rule allocating back-pay to the year it is actually paid would never work to the employee’s advantage; it could inure only to the detriment of the employee, counter to the thrust of the benefits eligibility provisions. In this case, by contrast, there is no comparable structural unfairness in taxation. The Government’s rule sometimes disadvantages the taxpayer, as in this ease. Other times it works to the disadvantage of the fisc, as the Company’s examples show. The anomalous results to which the Company points must be considered in light of Congress’ evident interest in reducing complexity and minimizing administrative confusion within the FICA and FUTA tax schemes. See supra, at 214. Given the practical administrability concerns that underpin the tax provisions, we cannot say that the Government’s rule is incompatible with the statutory scheme. The most we can say is that Congress intended the tax provisions to be both efficiently administrable and fair, and that this ease reveals the tension that sometimes exists when Congress seeks to meet those twin aims.

D

Confronted with this tension, “we do not sit as a committee of revision to perfect the administration of the tax laws.” United States v. Correll, 389 U.S. 299, 306-307 (1967). Instead, we defer to the Commissioner’s regulations as long as they “implement the congressional mandate in some reasonable manner.” Id., at 307. “We do this because Congress has delegated to the [Commissioner], not to the courts, the task of prescribing all needful rules and regulations for the enforcement‘of the Internal Revenue Code.” National Muffler Dealers Assn., Inc. v. United States, 440 U.S. 472, 477 (1979) (citing Correll, 389 U.S., at 307 (citing 26 U. S. C. § 7805(a))). This delegation “helps guarantee that the rules will be written by ‘masters of the subject’ . . . who will be responsible for putting the rules into effect.” 440 U.S., at 477 (quoting United States v. Moore, 95 U.S. 760, 763 (1878)).

The Internal Revenue Service has long maintained regulations interpreting the FICA and FUTA tax provisions. In their current form, the regulations specify that the employer tax “attaches at the time that the wages are paid by the employer,” 26 CFR §31.3111-3 (2000) (emphasis added), and “is computed by applying to the wages paid by the employer the rate in effect at the time such wages are paid,” § 31.3111-2(c) (emphasis added); see §§ 31.3301-2, -3(b) (same for FUTA). Echoing the language in 26 U. S. C. § 3111(a) (FICA tax) and §3301 (FUTA tax), these regulations have continued unchanged in their basic substance since 1940. See T. D. 6516, 25 Fed. Reg. 13032 (1960); Treas. Regs. 107 (as amended by T. D. 5566, 1947-2 Cum. Bull. 148); Treas. Regs. 106 (as amended by T. D. 5566,1947-2 Cum. Bull. 148); Treas. Regs. 106, §§402.301-.303, 402.401-.403 (1940). Cf. National Muffler, 440 U. S., at 477 (“A regulation may have particular force if it is a substantially contemporaneous construction of the statute by those presumed to have been aware of congressional intent.”).

Although the regulations, like the statute, do not specifically address backpay, the Internal Revenue Service has consistently interpreted them to require taxation of back wages according to the year the wages are actually paid, regardless of when those wages were earned or should have been paid. Rev. Rul. 89-85, 1989-1 Cum. Bull. 280; Rev. Rul. 78-836, 1978-2 Cum. Bull. 255. We need not decide whether the Revenue Rulings themselves are entitled to deference. In this case, the Rulings simply reflect the agency’s longstanding interpretation of its own regulations. Because that interpretation is reasonable, it attracts substantial judicial deference. Thomas Jefferson Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 512 (1994). We do not resist according such deference in reviewing an agency’s steady interpretation of its own 61-year-old regulation implementing a 62-year-old statute. “Treasury regulations and interpretations long continued without substantial change, applying to unamended or substantially reenacted statutes, are deemed to have received congressional approval and have the effect of law.” Cottage Savings Assn. v. Commissioner, 499 U.S. 554, 561 (1991) (citing Correll, 389 U. S., at 305-306).

* * *

In line with the text and administrative history of the relevant taxation provisions, we hold that, for FICA and FUTA tax purposes, back wages should be attributed to the year in which they are actually paid. Accordingly, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed.

It is so ordered.

Justice Scalia,

concurring in the judgment.

If I believed that the text of the tax statutes addressed the issue before us, I might well find for the respondent, giving that text the same meaning the Court found it to have in the benefits provisions of the Social Security Act. See Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, 327 U.S. 358, 370, and n. 25 (1946). The Court’s principal reason for assigning the identical language a different meaning in the present case— leaving aside statements in testimony and Committee Reports that I have no reason to believe Congress was aware of — is that tax assessments do not present the equitable considerations implicated by the potential arbitrary decrease of benefits in Nierotko. See ante, at 212-213. But the Court acknowledges that departing from Nierotko will produce arbitrary variations in tax liability. See ante, at 216-218. As between an immediate arbitrary increase in tax liability and a deferred arbitrary decrease in benefits, I cannot say the latter is the greater inequity. The difference is at least not so stark as to cause me to regard the two regulatory schemes as different in kind, which I would insist upon before giving different meanings to identical statutory texts.

In fact, however, I do not think that the text of the FICA and FUTA provisions, 26 U. S. C. §§ 3111(a), 3111(b), 3301, addresses the issue we face today. Those provisions, which direct that taxes shall be assessed against “wages paid” during the calendar year, would be controlling if the income we had before us were “wages” within the normal meaning of that term; but it is not. The question we face is whether damages awards compensating an employee for lost wages should be regarded for tax purposes as wages paid when the award is received, or rather as wages paid when they would have been paid but for the employer’s unlawful actions. (The parties have stipulated that the damages awards should be regarded as taxable “wages paid” of some sort, see also Social Security Bd. v. Nierotko, supra, at 364-370.) The proper treatment of such damages awards is an issue the statute does not address, and hence it is an issue left to the reasonable resolution of the administering agency, here the Internal Revenue Service. In Nierotko, which we decided at a time when it was common for courts to fill statutory gaps that would now be left to the agency, we provided one rule for purposes of the benefits provisions. The Internal Revenue Service has since provided another rule for purposes of the tax provisions. Both rules are reasonable; neither is compelled; and neither involves a direct application of the statutory term “wages paid” which would require (or at least strongly suggest) a uniform result. I therefore concur in the Court’s judgment deferring to the Government’s regulations.

       26 U.S.C. §§3101(a), 3111(a), 3121(a)(1); 51 Fed. Reg. 40256, 40257 (1986).

       §§ 3101(a), 3111(a), 3121(a)(1); 50 Fed. Reg. 45558,45559 (1985).

       §§ 3101(a), 3111(a), 3121(a)(1); 58 Fed. Reg. 58004, 58005 (1993).

       §§ 3101(b), 3111(b).

       26 U. S. C. § 3121(a)(1) (1982 ed.); 51 Fed. Reg. 40256, 40257 (1986); 50 Fed. Reg. 45558,45559 (1985).

       26 U. S. C. § 3121(a)(1).

       26 U. S. C. §§3301,3306(b)(1) (1982 ed. and Supp. III).

       26 U. S. C. §§3301,3306(b)(1).

       If a player received wages in 1994 from another employer in addition to receiving back wages from the Company, the player — but not the Company — would be entitled to a credit or refund of any Social Security tax paid in excess of the amount of tax due on a single taxable wage base ($60,600). 26 U. S. C. § 6413(c)(1). To illustrate, suppose a player received $50,000 in back wages from the Cleveland Indians and an additional $50,000 in wages from the New York Mets in 1994. Assuming all $100,000 in wages are taxed in 1994, the player would be entitled to a credit or refund of Social Security tax paid in excess of the amount of tax due on $60,600. By contrast, the Indians and the Mets would each be liable for Social Security taxes on $50,000 in wages paid to that player. 26 U. S. C. §3111 (Social Security tax is “an excise tax, with respect to having individuals in his employ”). Thus, under the Government’s proposed rule, the Cleveland Indians would owe Social Security taxes on all amounts up to $60,600 that it paid to each player in 1994, regardless of whether the players themselves had reached or exceeded the $60,600 ceiling through multiple wage sources.

       Although the Company also withheld $99,382 to pay the employees’ share of FICA taxes, it does not seek to recover any taxes paid on behalf of the employees in this suit.

       This amount is slightly less than the total FICA and FUTA taxes paid by the Company in 1994 The reason is that one of the employees who received a 1994 payment for wages due in 1987 received no wages from the Company in 1987. The Company thus owed a small amount of FICA and FUTA taxes on the back wages paid to him even when those wages were allocated back to 1987.

       In determining that “accounting difficulties” were “not... insuperable” to its allocation holding, Nierotko noted that “‘backpay' is now treated distributively” under § 119 of the Kevenue Act of 1943. 327 U.S., at 370, and n. 26. Section 119 provided that backpay exceeding 15 percent of gross income may be allocated to earlier periods for income tax purposes if such allocation would reduce the taxpayer’s liability. § 119(a), 68 Stat. 39. But Congress eliminated the 1943 backpay allocation rule in 1964, see Pub. L. 88-272, §232(a), 78 Stat. 107, leaving behind the principle, “too firmly embedded in the income tax law to permit of any question,” that “payments of compensation are income to a taxpayer on a cash basis in the year of receipt, as distinguished from the year in which the compensation is earned,” 2 J. Mertens, Law of Federal Income Taxation § 12.42, p. 179 (1973). The symmetry urged by the Company in construing the tax and benefits provisions of FICA and FUTA thus comes only at the expense of asymmetry in the collection of income taxes and employment taxes.

       Indeed, the contemporaneous understanding of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue was that the 1946 Amendments supplanted Nierotko’s allocation rule for badipay. See Letter from Joseph D. Nunan, Jr., Commissioner of Internal Revenue, to Social Security Administration, Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (Mar. 6,1947) (“The Nierotko decision requiring your Agency to make an allocation of the back pay award to prior periods was rendered on the basis of the law in effect at that time. The Social Security Act Amendments of 1946, having been enacted subsequent to the date of the Nierotko decision, must be interpreted in the light of the language contained in such Amendments and the Congressional intent.”) (available in Lodging for Respondent, Exh. F). Nevertheless, for benefits eligibility and calculation purposes, the Social Security Administration (SSA) by regulation continues to apply the Nierotko rule to “[b]ack pay under a statute,” 20 CFR 1404.1242(b) (2000) (such backpay “is allocated to the periods of time in which it should have been paid if the employer had not violated the statute”), while declining to apply Nierotko to “[b]aek pay not under a statute,” §404.1242(e) (“This back pay cannot be allocated to prior periods of time but must be reported by the employer for the period in which it is paid.”).

       The SSA has interpreted its regulation governing “[black pay under a statute,” 20 CFR §404.1242(b) (2000), to allow the employee to choose whether to allocate the backpay to the year it is paid or to the year it should have been paid. Social Security Administration, Reporting Back Pay and Special Wage Payments to the Social Security Administration 2, Pub. 957 (Sept. 1997).


author: Justice Thomas Justice Ginsburg,

text:
    SHAW et al. v. MURPHY
    No. 99-1613.
    Argued January 16, 2001
    Decided April 18, 2001

      David L. Ohler, Special Assistant Attorney General of Montana, argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs were Joseph P. Mazurek, Attorney General, and Diana Leibinger-Koch, Special Assistant Attorney General.

      Patricia A. Millett argued the cause for the United States as amicus curiae urging reversal. With her on the brief were Solicitor General Waxman, Assistant Attorney General Ogden, Deputy Solicitor General Underwood, Gregory G. Garre, Barbara L. Herwig, and John Hoyle.

      Jeffrey T. Renz argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.

      Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the State of Florida et al. by Robert A Butterworth, Attorney General of Florida, Thomas E. Warner, Solicitor General, and Cecilia Bradley, Assistant Attorney General, and by the Attorneys General for their respective States as follows: Bill Pryor of Alabama, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, M. Jane Brady of Delaware, James E. Ryan of Illinois, Thomas J. Miller of Iowa, Carla J. Stovall of Kansas, Richard P. leyoub of Louisiana, Thomas F. Reilly of Massachusetts, Don Stenberg of Nebraska, Philip T. McLaughlin of New Hampshire, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Betty D. Montgomery of Ohio, W. A Drew Edmondson of Oklahoma, Jan Graham of Utah, William H. Sorrell of Vermont, and Mark L. Earley of Virginia; and for the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation by Kent S. Scheidegger and Charles L. Hobson.

        Daniel L. Greenberg, John Boston, Elizabeth Alexander, Margaret Winter, David C. Fathi, and Stephen Bright filed a brief for the Legal Aid Society of the City of New York et al. as amici curiae urging affirmance.

   Justice Thomas

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Under our decision in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), restrictions on prisoners’ communications to other inmates are constitutional if the restrictions are “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” Id., at 89. In this case, we are asked to decide whether prisoners possess a First Amendment right to provide legal assistance that enhances the protections otherwise available under Turner. We hold that they do not.

I

While respondent Kevin Murphy was incarcerated at the Montana State Prison, he served as an “inmate law clerk,” providing legal assistance to fellow prisoners. Upon learning that inmate Pat Tracy had been charged with assaulting Correctional Officer Glen Galle, Murphy decided to assist Tracy with his defense. Prison rules prohibited Murphy’s assignment to the case, but he nonetheless investigated the assault. After discovering that other inmates had complained about Officer Galle’s conduct, Murphy sent Tracy a letter, which included the following:

“I do want to help you with your ease against Galle. It wasn’t your fault and I know he provoked whatever happened! Don’t plead guilty because we can get at least 100 witnesses to testify that Galle is an over zealous guard who has a personal agenda to punish and harrass [sic] inmates. He has made homo-sexual [sic] advances towards certain inmates and that can be brought up into the record. There are petitions against him and I have tried to get the Unit Manager to do something about what he does in Close II, but all that happened is that I received two writeups from him myself as retaliation. So we must pursue this out of the prison system. I am filing a suit with everyone in Close I and II named against him. So you can use that too!
"Another poiont [sic] is that he grabbed you from behind. You tell your lawyer to get ahold of me on this. Don’t take a plea bargain unless it’s for no more time.” App. 50.

In accordance with prison policy, prison officials intercepted the letter, and petitioner Robert Shaw, an officer in the maximum-security unit, reviewed it. Based on the accusations against Officer Galle, Shaw cited Murphy for violations of the prison’s rules prohibiting insolence, interference with due process hearings, and conduct that disrupts or interferes with the security and orderly operation of the institution. After a hearing, Murphy was found guilty of violating the first two prohibitions. The hearings officer sanctioned him by imposing a suspended sentence of 10 days’ detention and issuing demerits that could affect his custody level.

In response, Murphy brought this action, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief under Rev. Stat. § 1979, 42 U, S. C. §1983. The case was styled as a class action, brought on behalf of himself, other inmate law clerks, and other prisoners. The complaint alleged that the disciplining of Murphy violated due process, the rights of inmates to access the courts, and, as relevant here, Murphy’s First Amendment rights, including the right to provide legal assistance to other inmates.

After discovery, the District Court granted petitioners’ motion for summary judgment on all of Murphy’s claims. On the First Amendment claim, the court found that Murphy was not formally acting as an inmate law clerk when he wrote the letter, and that Murphy’s claims should therefore “be analyzed without consideration of any privilege that law clerk status might provide.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 24. The District Court then applied our decision in Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78 (1987), which held that a prison regulation impinging on inmates’ constitutional rights is valid “if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests,” id., at 89. Finding a “valid, rational connection between the prison inmate correspondence policy and the objectives of prison order, security, and inmate rehabilitation,” the District Court rejected Murphy’s First Amendment claim. App. to Pet. for Cert. 25.

The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed. It premised its analysis on the proposition that “inmates have a First Amendment right to assist other inmates with their legal claims.” 195 F. 3d 1121, 1124 (1999). Murphy enjoyed this right of association, the court concluded, because he was providing legal advice that potentially was relevant to Tracy’s defense. The Court of Appeals then applied our decision in Turner, but it did so only against the backdrop of this First Amendment right, which, the court held, affected the balance of the prisoner’s interests against the government’s interests. Concluding that the balance tipped in favor of Murphy, the Court of Appeals upheld Murphy’s First Amendment claim.

Other Courts of Appeals have rejected similar claims. See, e. g., Gibbs v. Hopkins, 10 F. 3d 373, 378 (CA6 1993) (no constitutional right to assist other inmates with legal claims); Smith v. Maschner, 899 F. 2d 940, 950 (CA10 1990) (same); Gassier v. Rayl, 862 F. 2d 706, 707-708 (CA8 1988) (same). To resolve the conflict, we granted certiorari. 580 U.S. 1308 (2000).

II

In this case, we are not asked to decide whether prisoners have any First Amendment rights when they send legal correspondence to one another. In Turner, we held that restrictions on inmate-to-inmate communications pass constitutional muster only if the restrictions are reasonably related to legitimate and neutral governmental objectives. 482 U.S., at 89. We did not limit our holding to nonlegal correspondence, and petitioners do not ask us to construe it that way. Instead, the question presented here simply asks whether Murphy possesses a First Amendment right to provide legal advice that enhances the protections otherwise available under Turner. The effect of such a right, as the Court of Appeals described it, 195 F. 3d, at 1127, would be that inmate-to-inmate correspondence that includes legal assistance would receive more First Amendment protection than correspondence without any legal assistance. We conclude that there is no such special right.

Traditionally, federal courts did not intervene in the internal affairs of prisons and instead “adopted a broad hands-off attitude toward problems of prison administration.” Procunier v. Martinez, 416 U. S. 396, 404 (1974). Indeed, for much of this country’s history, the prevailing view was that a prisoner was a mere “slave of the State,” who “not only forfeited his liberty, but all his personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords him.” Jones v. North Carolina Prisoners’ Labor Union, Inc., 433 U.S. 119, 139 (1977) (Marshall, J., dissenting) (quoting Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. 790, 796 (1871)) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted). In recent decades, however, this Court has determined that incarceration does not divest prisoners of all constitutional protections. Inmates retain, for example, the right to he free from racial discrimination, Lee v. Washington, 390 U.S. 333 (1968) (per curiam), the right to due process, Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 639 (1974), and, as relevant here, certain protections of the First Amendment,. Turner, supra.

We nonetheless have maintained that the constitutional rights that prisoners possess are more limited in scope than the constitutional rights held by individuals in society at large. In the First Amendment context, for instance, some rights are simply inconsistent with the status of a prisoner or "with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system,” Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822 (1974). We have thus sustained proscriptions of media interviews with individual inmates, see id., at 833-835, prohibitions on the activities of a prisoners’ labor union, see North Carolina Prisoners’Labor Union, Inc., supra, at 133, and restrictions on inmate-to-inmate written correspondence, see Turner, supra, at 93. Moreover, because the “problems of prisons in America are complex and intractable,” and because courts are particularly “ill equipped” to deal with these problems, Martinez, supra, at 404-405, we generally have deferred to the judgments of prison officials in upholding these regulations against constitutional challenge.

Reflecting this understanding, in Turner we adopted a unitary, deferential standard for reviewing prisoners’ constitutional elaims: “[W]hen a prison regulation impinges on inmates’ constitutional rights, the regulation is valid if it is reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” 482 U. S., at 89. Under this standard, four factors are relevant. First and foremost, “there must be a Valid, rational connection’ between the prison regulation and the legitimate [and neutral] governmental interest put forward to justify it.” Ibid, (quoting Block v. Rutherford, 468 U.S. 576, 586 (1984)). If the connection between the regulation and the asserted goal is “arbitrary or irrational,” then the regulation fails, irrespective of whether the other factors tilt in its favor. 482 U.S., at 89-90. In addition, courts should consider three other factors: the existence of “alternative means of exercising the right” available to inmates; “the impact accommodation of the asserted constitutional right will have on guards and other inmates, and on the allocation of prison resources generally”; and “the absence of ready alternatives” available to the prison for achieving the governmental objectives. Id., at 90.

Because Turner provides the test for evaluating prisoners’ First Amendment challenges, the issue before us is whether Turner permits an increase in constitutional protection whenever a prisoner’s communication includes legal advice. We conclude that it does not. To increase the constitutional protection based upon the content of a communication first requires an assessment of the value of that content. But the Turner test, by its terms, simply does not accommodate valuations of content. On the contrary, the Turner factors concern only the relationship between the asserted penological interests and the prison regulation. Id., at 89.

Moreover, under Turner and its predecessors, prison officials are to remain the primary arbiters of the problems that arise in prison management. Ibid.; see also Martinez, supra, at 405 (“[Cjourts are ill equipped to deal with the increasingly urgent problems of prison administration and reform”). If courts were permitted to enhance constitutional protection based on their assessments of the content of the particular communications, courts would be in a position to assume a greater role in decisions affecting prison administration. Seeking to avoid “‘unnecessarily perpetu-at[ing] the involvement of the federal courts in affairs of prison administration,’” Turner, 482 U.S., at 89 (quoting Martinez, supra, at 407) (alteration in original), we reject an alteration of the Turner analysis that would entail additional federal-court oversight.

Finally, even if we were to consider giving special protection to particular kinds of speeeh based upon content, we would not do so for speech that includes legal advice. Augmenting First Amendment protection for inmate legal advice would undermine prison officials’ ability to address the “complex and intractable” problems of prison administration. Turner, supra, at 84. Although supervised inmate legal assistance programs may serve valuable ends, it is “indisputable” that inmate law clerks “are sometimes a menace to prison discipline” and that prisoners have an “acknowledged propensity ... to abuse both the giving and the seeking of [legal] assistance.” Johnson v. Avery, 393 U.S. 483, 488, 490 (1969). Prisoners have used legal correspondence as a means for passing contraband and communicating instructions on how to manufacture drugs or weapons. See Brief for State of Florida et al. as Amici Curiae 6-8; see also Turner, supra, at 93 (“[P]risoners could easily write in jargon or codes to prevent detection of their real messages”). The legal text also could be an excuse for making clearly inappropriate comments, which “may be expected to circulate among prisoners,” Thornburgh v. Abbott, 490 U.S. 401, 412 (1989), despite prison measures to screen individual inmates or officers from the remarks.

We thus decline to cloak the provision of legal assistance with any First Amendment protection above and beyond the protection normally accorded prisoners’ speech. Instead, the proper constitutional test is the one we set forth in Turner. Irrespective of whether the correspondence contains legal advice, the constitutional analysis is the same.

HH KH

Under Turner, the question remains whether the prison regulations, as applied to Murphy, are “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.” 482 U.S., at 89. To prevail, Murphy must overcome the presumption that the prison officials acted within their “broad discretion.” Abbott, supra, at 413. Petitioners ask us to answer, rather than remand, the question whether Murphy has satisfied this heavy burden. We decline petitioners’ request, however, because we granted certiorari only to decide whether inmates possess a special First Amendment right to provide legal assistance to fellow inmates.

* H= *

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

Justice Ginsburg,

concurring.

I agree with the Court that the Ninth Circuit erred in holding that the First Amendment secures to prisoners a freestanding right to provide legal assistance to other inmates. I note, furthermore, that Murphy does not contest the prison’s right to intercept prisoner-to-prisoner correspondence. But Murphy’s § 1983 complaint does allege that the prison rules under which he was disciplined — rules forbidding insolence and interference with due process hearings — are vague and overbroad as applied to him in this case. The Ninth Circuit passed over that charge when it ruled, erroneously, that an inmate’s provision of legal assistance to another inmate is an activity specially protected by the First Amendment. 195 F. 3d 1121, 1128 (1999). The remand for which the Court provides should not impede Murphy from reasserting claims that the Court of Appeals so far has left untouched.

       Tracy had requested that Murphy be assigned to his case. App. 84. Prison officials, however, denied that request because prison policy forbade high-security inmates, such as Murphy, from meeting with maximum-seeurity inmates, including Tracy. App. to Pet. for Cert. 19. Prison officials offered Tracy another law clerk to assist him. App. 84.

       The Court of Appeals made such an assessment when it “ ‘balance[d] the importance of the prisoner’s infnnged right against the importance of the penological interest served by the rule.’” 195 F. 3d 1121, 1127 (CA9 1999) (quoting Bradley v. Hall, 64 F. 3d 1276, 1280 (CA9 1995)).

       Murphy suggests that the right to provide legal advice follows from a right to receive legal advice. However, even if one right followed from the other, Murphy is incorrect in his assumption that there is a freestanding right to receive legal advice. Under our right-of-access precedents, inmates have a right to receive legal advice from other inmates only when it is a necessary “means for ensuring a ‘reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed violations of fundamental constitutional rights to the courts.' ” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 350-351 (1996) (quoting Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 825 (1977)).

      The rule forbidding insolence defines “insolence” as “[wjords, actions or other behavior which is intended to harass or cause alarm in an employee.” Mont. State Prison Policy No. 15-001, Inmate Disciplinary Policy, Rule 009 (App. 10) (emphasis added). The policy includes the following examples of insolence: “Cursing; abusive language, writing or gestures directed to an employee.” Ibid, (emphasis added). The disciplinary report citing Murphy for violating the rule against insolence contains no finding that Murphy’s letter was “directed to” Officer Galle or that the letter was “intended to harass” Officer Galle. App. 52. Although Murphy undoubtedly knew that his letter to Tracy would be read by prison officials, there is no record evidence contesting Murphy’s sworn statement that he “did not believe that Officer Galle would read the letter.” Murphy Affidavit ¶ 10 (App. 88).