Holding Alabama Supreme Court Justice’s expressions of frustration with insurance companies did not establish disqualifying bias, although his pecuniary interest in a concurrent lawsuit did. The Court in Commonwealth Coatings Corp. v. Continental Casualty Co., 393 U.S. 145 (1968), stated in dicta that “in Tumey[, 273 U.S., at 524,] the Court held that a decision should be set aside where there is `the slightest pecuniary interest’ on the part of the judge . . . .” Id., at 148. We think this was a misreading of Tumey. The reference to “the slightest pecuniary interest” in that opinion came in a portion of the opinion describing “cases at common law in England prior to the separation of colonies from the mother country . . . .” 273 U.S., at 524. At a later point in the opinion, Chief Justice Taft quoted approvingly from the work of Justice Cooley, that disqualification is not worked in cases where the “`interest is so remote, trifling and insignificant that it may fairly be supposed to be incapable of affecting the judgment of or of influencing the conduct of an individual.'” Id., at 531 (quoting T. Cooley, Constitutional Limitations 594 (7th ed. 1903)). Chief Justice Taft also reiterated that the case was not one “in which the penalties and the costs are negligible . . . . The court is a state agency, imposing substantial punishment . . . . It is not to be treated as a mere village tribunal for village peccadilloes.” 273 U.S., at 532. We therefore follow Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57, 60 (1972), and decline to read Tumey as constitutionalizing any rule that a decision rendered by a judge with “the slightest pecuniary interest” constitutes a violation of the Due Process Clause. Aetna Life Insurance Co. v. Lavoie 475 U.S. 813 (1986)
Holding magistrate lacked neutrality because he had a pecuniary interest in seeing the warrant issue. Pursuant to a search warrant issued by a justice of the peace, appellant’s house was raided and marihuana found there was seized. Connally was arrested. At his trial he moved to suppress the evidence so seized on the ground that the justice who had issued the warrant was not “a neutral and detached magistrate” because he had a pecuniary interest in issuing the warrant. The trial court denied that motion, and the Supreme Court of Georgia, in affirming, rejected the constitutional challenge. Connally v. Georgia 429 U.S. 245 (1977)
In Dugan, by contrast, there was no due process violation where the mayor who presided over contested cases was not the chief executive and had no pecuniary interest in cases tried in mayor’s court. Dugan v. Ohio 277 U.S. 61 (1928)
In McClure, Part B claimants asserted that fair hearings were not sufficiently impartial to comport with due process because the fair hearing officers had a pecuniary interest in being retained by the carrier for future hearings, and because many hearing officers had been employed previously by the carriers. Schweiker v. McClure 456 U.S. 188 (1982)
The court reached its conclusion of unconstitutionality by alternative lines of argument. The first rested upon the principle that tribunals must be impartial. The court thought that the impartiality of the carrier’s hearing officers was compromised by their “prior involvement and pecuniary interest. ” Id., at 414. “Pecuniary interest” was shown, the District Court said, by the fact that “their incomes as hearing officers are entirely dependent upon the carrier’s decisions regarding whether, and how often, to call upon their services.” Id., at 415. Respecting “prior involvement,” the court acknowledged that hearing officers personally had not been previously involved in the cases they decided. But it noted that hearing officers “are appointed by, and serve at the will of, the carrier [that] has not only participated in the prior stages of each case, but has twice denied the claims [that] are the subject of the hearing,” and that five out of seven of Blue Shield’s past and present hearing officers “are former or current Blue Shield employees.” Id., at 414. (Emphasis in original.) See also 42 C.F.R. § 405.824 (1980). The District Court thought these links between. Schweiker v. McClure 456 U.S. 188 (1982)
Holding that a hearing where the judge has a “direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest” in the outcome of the case violates the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment. The issue turns, as the Ohio court acknowledged, on whether the Mayor can be regarded as an impartial judge under the principles laid down by this Court in Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927). There, convictions for prohibition law violations rendered by the Mayor of North College Hill, Ohio, were reversed when it appeared that, in addition to his regular salary, the Mayor received $696.35 from the fees and costs levied by him against alleged violators. This Court held that “it certainly violates the Fourteenth Amendment, and deprives a defendant in a criminal case of due process of law, to subject his liberty or property to the judgment of a court the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial, pecuniary interest in reaching a conclusion against him in his case.” Id., at 523.Ward v. Village of Monroeville 409 U.S. 57 (1972)
Holding that judge’s personal pecuniary interest in imposing fines supported presumption of bias. There was at the common law the greatest sensitiveness over the existence of any pecuniary interest, however small or infinitesimal, in the justices of the peace. Tumey v. Ohio 273 U.S. 510 (1927)Holding that “those with substantial pecuniary interest in legal proceedings should not adjudicate these disputes.” It is sufficiently clear from our cases that those with substantial pecuniary interest in legal proceedings should not adjudicate these disputes. Tumey v. Ohio, 273 U.S. 510 (1927). And Ward v. Village of Monroeville, 409 U.S. 57 (1972), indicates that the financial stake need not be as direct or positive as it appeared to be in Tumey. It has also come to be the prevailing view that “[m]ost of the law concerning disqualification because of interest applies with equal force to . . . administrative adjudicators.” K. Davis, Administrative Law Text § 12.04, p. 250 (1972), and cases cited. The District Court proceeded on this basis and, applying the standards taken from our cases, concluded that the pecuniary interest of the members of the Board of Optometry had sufficient substance to disqualify them, given the context in which this case arose. As remote as we are from the local realities underlying this case and it being very likely that the District Court has a firmer grasp of the facts and of their significance to the issues presented, we have no good reason on this record to overturn its conclusion and we affirm it. Gibson v. Berryhill 411 U.S. 564 (1973)
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