Specialization and Authority Acceptance: The Supreme Court and Lower Federal Courts

• Published date: 01 September 1994
• Date: 01 September 1994
• Author: Lawrence Baum
• DOI: 10.1177/106591299404700307
• Subject Matter: Articles

Specialization and Authority
Acceptance: The Supreme Court
and Lower Federal Courts
LAWRENCE BAUM, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
Research on organizational behavior suggests that the authority of higher
officials for their subordinates is relatively low for subordinates whose work
is highly specialized. If this proposition is valid, the Supreme Court should
have more limited authority for specialized federal courts than for their
generalist counterparts. To test this expectation, citations to the Court’s deci-
sions in patent law were analyzed. It was posited that the former Court of
Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA), a specialized court, cited the Supreme
Court in patent cases less often than did the generalist federal courts of
appeals. This hypothesis was strongly supported according to several
measures of citation frequency. The results emphasize the potential impact
of specialization on hierarchical authority in organizations and underline
the consequences of specialization for judicial behavior.
Some students of organizational behavior argue that higher officials face special
difficulty in leading subordinates who carry out highly specialized tasks, primarily
because of the impact of specialization on acceptance of authority. But we have
little empirical evidence on the relationship between specialization and authority,
chiefly because of the dearth of research that compares specialists and non-
specialists who hold similar organizational positions. This article undertakes
such a comparison by examining the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court in
patent law for generalist and specialized judges; authority is measured through
citations to decisions of the Supreme Court and of other courts.
THEoRriCAL ISSUES
Authority has been defined in multiple ways. Most often, it is equated with
legitimate power (Scott 1987: 286; see also Peabody 1964; and Dombusch and
Scott 1975). Within organizations, hierarchical authority is based on subor-
NOTE : James Brent provided indispensible research assistance on this project. The article
was strengthened through comments on earlier drafts by Gregory Caldeira, Elliot
Slotnick, Thomas Walker and the referees.
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dinates’ belief that they should follow the lead of superiors because those
superiors have a right to lead. In turn, hierarchical authority enhances the level
of compliance by subordinates with the policies of superiors.
Another important basis for authority is subject-matter expertise. Where
superiors lack expertise in a field, subordinate officials may look for guidance
to people outside the hierarchy who possess such expertise. As a result, the
capacity of higher officials to lead effectively is weakened (Gouldner 1959: 413).
Subordinates who work within specialized units are especially likely to
accord authority to experts rather than organizational superiors. Immersed in
a particular field, interacting with experts in that field, specialists may be drawn
to the views of those experts in opposition to those of the non-expert officials
who stand above them in the formal hierarchy (see Dubin 1974: 243). This
tendency is visible in the federal bureaucracy (Wilson 1989: 91-101; Seidman
and Gilmour 1986: ch. 6).
Supreme courts are like other organizational leaders in that their formal
position does not guarantee them effective control over their subordinates (Reid
1988; Songer 1988). But high courts benefit from the unusual strength of hierar-
chical authority within the judiciary, based in part on the training and socializa-
tion of future judges (see Howard 1981: 115-24). And the federal courts are
an unusual organization in that judges on the most important lower federal
courts are basically generalists.
Yet a growing portion of federal judicial business has been entrusted to
specialized courts, in fields such as taxes, international trade, and benefits for
military veterans (Revesz 1990). This development has aroused concern about
the impact of specialization on court behavior (Posner 1983; Schwartz 1981).
Virtually no attention, however, has been given to the potential impact of
specialization on authority within the judiciary. Such an impact may well ex-
ist, because the forces that weaken hierarchical authority for specialists in other
organizations could be expected to operate in the courts. As a result, the rela-
tionship between the Supreme Court and specialized lower courts may differ
considerably from the Court’s relationship with the generalist courts of appeals
and district courts.
THE STUDY: PATENT ADJUDICATION IN THE FEDERAL COURTS
Background
The subject of this study is the Supreme Court’s authority in patent law for
judges on a specialized court, the former federal Court of Customs and Patent
Appeals (CCPA), and for judges on the generalist federal courts of appeals. This
subject is a good one for comparison, because generalist and specialized judges
both dealt with the central issue in patent law, the standards by which ap-
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plications for patents should be assessed. The applicable federal statute lays
down criteria for &dquo;patentability;’ including novelty, utility, and nonobviousness.
Courts have to interpret these criteria and, more broadly, determine the general
rigor or leniency with which they should be applied.
From 1929 to 1982, both the courts of appeals and the CCPA held jurisdic-
tion requiring them to address the standard of...