Humphrey’s Executor
Humphrey's Executor v. United States was a 1935 Supreme Court case in which the estate of William E. Humphrey (the former chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)) sued the federal government to recover his pension after he was unlawfully fired by the President.
William Humphrey was originally appointed to the FTC by President Calvin Coolidge in 1925, and was later appointed to a seven year term as Chair by President Herbert Hoover. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt requested Humphrey’s resignation, stating: "You will, I know, realize that I do not feel that your mind and my mind go along together on either the policies or the administering of the Federal Trade Commission, and, frankly, I think it is best for the people of this country that I should have a full confidence." (See: Humphrey's Executor v. United States). In October of 1933, President Roosevelt terminated Humphrey from his position at the FTC after he refused to resign. William Humphrey died in February of 1934, and the executor of Humphrey’s estate argued that Humphrey’s firing was unlawful, and therefore his estate was owed his federal pension.
The underlying question of the case was whether the President’s removal power applied to agencies that did not perform strictly executive functions, such as the FTC. The Court held that the President may only remove the FTC chair for cause; such as inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance. In Humphrey’s case, the President did not have proper cause to fire Humphrey. The Court reasoned that the FTC’s function was not strictly executive in nature; and therefore, the President’s removal power did not extend to the FTC chair. The Court distinguished the case from Myers v. U.S., 272 U.S. 52 (1926), where a postmaster claimed that his firing was unlawful under the theory that Congress could not pass a law that placed constraints on the President’s ability to terminate executive officials at-will. The Court in Myers found that the President did have discretion to fire the postmaster because the postmaster’s role was primarily executive, as opposed to Humphrey’s Executor, where the FTC’s role is “neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative.”
[Last reviewed in March of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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