Currie v. Flack, 4564.

• Decision Date: 21 June 1951
• Docket Number: No. 4564.,4564.
• Citation: 190 F.2d 549
• Parties: CURRIE v. FLACK.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

190 F.2d 549 (1951)

CURRIE v. FLACK.

No. 4564.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

June 21, 1951.

Edward W. Brooke, Roxbury, Mass. (Harry J. Elam, Allan Green and Leonard Rose, Boston, Mass., with him on the brief), for appellant.

John F. Finnerty, Boston, Mass., for appellee.

Before MAGRUDER, Chief Judge, and WOODBURY and HARTIGAN, Circuit Judges.

MAGRUDER, Chief Judge.

A tenant filed his complaint in the court below under § 205 of the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, as amended, 61 Stat. 199, 63 Stat. 27, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 1895, seeking to recover from the landlord reasonable attorney's fees and costs plus liquidated damages in the amount of $345, being three times the amount of alleged overcharges for the period October 15, 1948, to March 15, 1949. It having been stipulated by the parties that the amount in controversy did not exceed $3,000, the district court, after hearing argument on defendant's motion to dismiss, entered judgment dismissing the complaint for lack of jurisdiction. We think the district court did right.

Section 205 of the Housing and Rent Act of 1947 provided, 61 Stat. 199: "Sec. 205. Any person who demands, accepts, or receives any payment of rent in excess of the maximum rent prescribed under section 204 shall be liable to the person from whom he demands, accepts, or receives such payment, for reasonable attorney's fees and costs as determined by the court, plus liquidated damages in the amount of (1) $50, or (2) three times the amount by which the payment or payments demanded, accepted, or received exceed the maximum rent which could lawfully be demanded, accepted, or received, whichever in either case may be the greater amount: Provided, That the amount of such liquidated damages shall be the amount of the overcharge or overcharges if the defendant proves that the violation was neither willful nor the result of failure to take practicable precautions against the occurrence of the violation. Suit to recover such amount may be brought in any Federal, State, or Territorial court of competent jurisdiction within one year after the date of such violation. * * *" For present purposes, the important sentence in § 205 is: "Suit to recover such amount may be brought in any Federal, State, or Territorial court of competent jurisdiction within one year after the date of such violation." Appellant says that this constitutes a grant of jurisdiction in all § 205 proceedings to those federal courts of first instance which, in keeping with their normal business, would most appropriately try cases of this sort; that is, not the Court of Claims, or the Tax Court of the United States, but the federal district courts. But we think the quoted sentence is clearly not a general grant of jurisdiction to any particular courts, whether federal, state, or territorial. Reference must be had to other provisions of law, to be found elsewhere, vesting jurisdiction in the particular court in this class of cases. Thus, if the tenant should bring suit for liquidated damages in some state court, the suit could not be maintained unless a state law conferred upon such court jurisdiction to entertain a suit for damages in the amount demanded in the complaint. We take it this would not be questioned. Cf. Mondou v. New York, New Haven & Hartford R. Co., 1912, 223 U.S. 1, 55-57, 32 S.Ct. 169, 56 L.Ed. 327; Testa v. Katt, 1947, 330 U.S. 386, 394, 67 S.Ct. 810, 91 L.Ed. 967. Likewise, if the tenant should sue in some federal court, say a federal district court: jurisdiction and venue to entertain such complaint would have to be found in some other provision of law outside of § 205.

No doubt Congress has power to vest in the federal district courts original jurisdiction over all complaints founded on an Act of Congress, irrespective of the amount in controversy. As a matter of policy, Congress has not seen fit to do so. The general provision is found in 28 U.S.C. § 1331 giving original jurisdiction to the district courts "of all civil actions wherein the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $3,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and arises under the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States." In cases arising under certain Acts of Congress, but not the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, a general grant of original jurisdiction is given to the district courts irrespective of the amount in controversy, for examples, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1334, 1337, 1338, 1339, 1340, 1343, 1352, 1355,¹ 1357.

It is quite true that the cases will be infrequent in which a tenant may maintain in a federal district court an action for liquidated damages under § 205 of the Housing and Rent Act if, as we hold, the amount in controversy must exceed $3,000, exclusive of interest and costs. In harmony with the general policy of Congress expressed in 28 U.S.C. § 1331, most of the suits by tenants, involving as they do small amounts of money, will be excluded from the federal courts. But in the exceptional case under this Act of Congress, where the tenant has a claim exceeding $3,000 in amount, it may be prosecuted in a federal district court under 28 U.S. C. § 1331; it is a sizable enough case to be deemed appropriate for cognizance in the federal courts. In this, there is nothing incongruous. We do not have a situation where a court might be tempted to do a bit of statutory face-lifting or some surgical or grafting operation upon the language of the statute, in the guise of statutory interpretation, to avoid an absurd result which Congress could not conceivably have intended.

Section 205 of the 1947 Act was amended by the Housing and Rent Act of 1949, 63 Stat. 27, so as to provide that if the tenant upon whom the overcharges had been imposed fails to institute an action for liquidated damages under the said section within thirty days from the date of the occurrence of the violation, "the United States may institute such action within such one-year period." Appellant cites a portion of a sentence from the report of the Senate Committee on H.R. 1731, which ultimately became the Housing and Rent Act of 1949. This report by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, Sen. Rep.No.127, March 17, 1949, found in 2 U.S.Cong.Serv., 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 1140 (1949), contained the statement (at 1159): "The district courts, concurrently with State and Territorial courts, are given jurisdiction of other proceedings under section 205 and subsection (b) of section 206 of the act; * * *." This, says appellant, is an express indication in 1949 of the belief of the 81st Congress that the preceding Congress, in the general language of § 205 of the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, had already given jurisdiction to the federal district courts in all cases instituted by tenants, irrespective of the amount in controversy. Even if this were true, it perhaps would not be of great significance in the interpretation of language in the 1947 Act. But the fact is that the quoted expression from this Sen.Rep.No.127 was not a statement by the committee of its understanding of the 1947 Act, but was rather part of an explanation of amendments which the committee had offered to H.R. 1731 after it had passed the House. The committee report points out that it proposed to add a new subsection (c) to § 206 of the Housing and Rent Act of 1947, making it a crime willfully to violate any provision of the Act or of a regulation or order thereunder. Continuing, the report paraphrases its proposed new subsection (d) to § 206 providing that the federal district courts shall have jurisdiction of criminal proceedings brought under the new subsection (c) and that, concurrently with state and territorial courts, the federal district courts shall have jurisdiction of all other proceedings under § 205 and § 206(b), the latter being the provision for suits for injunctions to be brought by the Housing Expediter in the name of the United States.

If § 206(d) as proposed by the Senate Committee had been enacted into law, it would have constituted a general grant of jurisdiction to the federal district courts of all the proceedings by tenants under § 205 regardless of the amount in controversy. But on the Senate floor the committee's proposed new § 206(c) imposing criminal penalties and its proposed new § 206(d) were stricken out, and in place thereof a differently worded subsection (c) was inserted by amendment. 95 Cong.Rec. 3014, 3018. This amended subsection (c) remained in the bill as it was finally passed in the Senate (95 Cong.Rec. 3033) and read in part as follows: "(c) The district courts shall have jurisdiction, concurrently with State and Territorial courts, of all proceedings under section 205 and subsection (b) of this section. Such proceedings may be brought in any district in which any part of any act or transaction constituting the violation occurred or may be brought in the district in which the defendant resides or transacts business, and process in such case may be served in any district wherein the defendant resides or transacts business or wherever the defendant may be found." Again, if this Senate-approved subsection (c) had been enacted into law, it would have constituted a general grant of jurisdiction to the federal district courts in all proceedings instituted by tenants under § 205, regardless of the amount in controversy. But the bill went to conference of the two Houses; and the committee of conference agreed upon a rephrasing of subsection (c), and as thus rephrased the subsection was enacted into law, reading in pertinent part as follows: "(c) Any proceeding brought in a Federal court under section 205 or under subsection (b) of this section may be brought in any district in which any part of any act or transaction constituting the violation occurred, or may be brought in the district in which the defendant resides or transacts business, and process in such case may be served in any district wherein the defendant resides or transacts business...