He stressed the importance of the political independence of the judiciary, which allows judges to decide cases free from domination from the Executive and Legislative branches.

The third exception discussed by Brennan are tribunals for the adjudication of cases involving public rights, matters which arise “between the government and persons subject to its authority in connection with the performance of the constitutional functions of the executive or legislative departments”.

Brennan held that the dispute in question here was an adjudication of private rights, because it involved the restructuring of creditor-debtor relations under the bankruptcy laws.

He framed the Constitutional issue as the determination whether the Bankruptcy Act retained “the essential attributes of judicial power” inherent in Article III tribunals.

These cases provided limits on the extent to which Congress may transfer traditionally judicial functions to non-Article III tribunals.

Finally, Brennan chose to apply the holding only prospectively, and to stay the judgment of the court until October 4, 1982, to give Congress some time to rewrite the statute.

White felt that the plurality was oversimplifying its analysis of Article III and the principle of judicial independence, and that pure textualism and deriving basic rules from past cases was not enough.

White accused the court of ignoring the complex realities of bankruptcy law in favor of its own theory of separation of powers.

White also felt that the plurality incorrectly defined the Crowell and Raddatz cases as the outer limits of Congressional authority to create non-Article III tribunals, and ignored both prior bankruptcy and administrative law practice.

The Court stayed its judgment until October 4, 1982 to give Congress an opportunity to repair the constitutional flaws in the bankruptcy system.

In response to Congress’ failure to act quickly, the Judicial Conference of the United States published an Emergency Interim Rule, which the federal district courts adopted on December 25, 1982.

The bankruptcy judges could not enter final orders or judgments on such related proceedings without consent of the parties, but had to submit its findings and conclusions to the district court, which were subject to de novo review.