Robinson v. Norato., 8711.

Decision Date25 July 1945
Docket NumberNo. 8711.,8711.
PartiesROBINSON v. NORATO.
CourtRhode Island Supreme Court

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Exceptions from Superior Court, Providence and Bristol Counties; Alberic A. Archambault, Judge.

Action on the case by Norman H. Robinson against Prudenza Norato for overcharges of rent in violation of the Federal Emergency Price Control Act. On plaintiff's exception to the sustaining of a demurrer to the declaration.

Exception overruled and case remitted.

Francis A. Kelleher, of Providence, for plaintiff.

Ambrose W. Carroll, Dist. Enforcement Atty., of Providence, and William B. Sleigh, Jr., Regional Litigation Atty., of Boston, Mass., on behalf of Chester Bowles, Administrator, Office of Price Administration, amicus curiae.

Philip B. Goldberg, Leo M. Goldberg, and Goldberg & Goldberg, all of Providence, for defendant.

CONDON, Justice.

This is an action on the case brought by a tenant against his landlord for alleged overcharges of rent in violation of section 205(e) of the Federal Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix § 925(e), and of regulations pursuant thereto governing the use and occupancy of housing accommodations in the city of Providence. Defendant demurred to the declaration in the superior court on several grounds, the principal one being that the statute on which the action is based is penal in its nature and therefore not cognizable, under the established law of Rhode Island, in the courts of this state. The superior court sustained the demurrer and plaintiff excepted to that decision. The case is here solely on that exception.

After the papers in the case were transmitted to this court, Chester Bowles, federal price administrator, requested permission to appear and file a brief as amicus curiae, which we granted. At the hearing before us the district enforcement attorney of the federal office of price administration for Rhode Island appeared for him and, with the consent of plaintiff's counsel, shared the time allotted to the plaintiff for oral argument. On plaintiff's side of the case we have thus had the benefit of two briefs and two oral arguments which, we think, have thoroughly presented that side for our consideration. In our discussion of the contentions therein presented, we shall not distinguish who made them but shall refer to them as plaintiff's contentions. We shall also refer to the statute simply as the Price Control Act.

Plaintiff contends that the decision of the superior court is erroneous because, first, the Price Control Act is not a penal statute, in the international sense; second, even though it be deemed by this court to be such a statute, the courts of Rhode Island should nevertheless enforce it, since the United States and Rhode Island are not foreign to each other; and, third, regardless of the penal character of the statute and the relation of the state to the United States, the courts of Rhode Island are bound to enforce the statute, since, as a law of the United States, it is the supreme law of the land and the judges in every state are bound thereby. We shall consider those contentions in the above order.

The Price Control Act was enacted by Congress under its power to declare and wage war. Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 64 S.Ct. 660, 88 L.Ed. 834; Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503, 64 S.Ct. 641, 88 L.Ed. 892. The rent provisions of the act go to the very limit of that power if, indeed, they do not go beyond it. They constitute a direct interference with interests in realty and indirectly affect the incidents of tenure of land in the several states which heretofore have never been considered to be within the domain of federal power either in peace or in war. But whether or not such provisions are constitutional in this respect, the Supreme Court of the United States has not to our knowledge determined nor are we called upon to do so here. For the purposes of this case, therefore, constitutionality must be assumed.

In undertaking to make price control legislation apply to interests in realty, Congress has declared that the renting of housing accommodations in ‘defense areas' shall be deemed the selling of a commodity and has subjected such renting transactions to the provisions of section 205(e), which reads as follows: ‘If any person selling a commodity violates a regulation, order, or price schedule prescribing a maximum price or maximum prices, the person who buys such commodity for use or consumption other than in the course of trade or business may bring an action either for $50 or for treble the amount by which the consideration exceeded the applicable maximum price, whichever is the greater, plus reasonable attorney's fees and costs as determined by the court. For the purposes of this section the payment or receipt of rent for defense-area housing accommodations shall be deemed the buying or selling of a commodity, as the case may be. If any person selling a commodity violates a regulation, order, or price schedule prescribing a maximum price or maximum prices, and the buyer is not entitled to bring suit or action under this subsection, the Administrator may bring such action under this subsection on behalf of the United States. Any suit or action under this subsection may be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction, and shall be instituted within one year after delivery is completed or rent is paid. * * *.’

The question of constitutional power in Congress to confer such jurisdiction on state courts is not raised by defendant's demurrer. As we understand the defendant, he claims that the superior court is without jurisdiction over the subject matter of the case at bar, because the Price Control Act is a penal statute in an international sense. However, if it is not such a penal statute, defendant does not deny that the superior court, as a court of general jurisdiction, is a court of competent jurisdiction within the meaning of the act.

Is this statute, under the established law of Rhode Island, a penal statute in an international sense? On the authority of the cases here we think that it must be so considered. McLay v. Slade, 48 R.I. 357, 138 A. 212; O'Reilly v. New York & N. E. R. Co., 16 R.I. 388, 17 A. 171, 906, 19 A. 244, 5 L.R.A. 364, 6 L.R.A. 719. That the penal statutes of one state will not be enforced by the courts of another state is a rule of private international law, which is universally acknowledged and applied. The Antelope, 10 Wheat. 66, 123 6 L.Ed. 268; State of Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U.S. 265, 8 S.Ct. 1370, 32 L.Ed. 239. But there has long been an apparently irreconcilable divergence of view as to what is a penal statute in an international sense. The settled view of the Supreme Court of the United States appears to be that a statute is penal, in that sense only if ‘its purpose is to punish an offense against the public justice of the state rather than ‘to afford a private remedy to a person injured by the wrongful act.’ Huntington v. Attrill, 146 U.S. 657, 673, 13 S.Ct. 224, 230, 36 L.Ed. 1123.

Since that decision was handed down in 1892 many state courts have followed it and some, in order to do so, have overruled their own prior decisions, which had enunciated a different rule. Wellman v. Mead, 93 Vt. 322, 107 A. 396; Daury v. Ferraro, 108 Conn. 386, 143 A. 630, 62 A.L.R. 1323. But in the McLay case, supra, this court, although it was also urged to overrule its prior decision in the O'Reilly case, expressly declined to do so. In that case this court had held that, where a Massachusetts statute had for its object some punishment of the defendant, it was a penal statute, notwithstanding the fact that the penalty of not less than $500 to be recovered by a civil action inured to the benefit of certain persons designated by the statute and not to the state of Massachusetts. Such was the so-called broad view of a penal statute that was somewhat widely held in this country until the opinion in Huntington v. Attrill, supra, gave strong support to what is sometimes called the narrow view. The latter view has been briefly and well expressed by the New York Court of Appeals, speaking through Judge Cardozo, in Loucks v. Standard Oil Co., 224 N.Y. 99, 102, 120 N.E. 198, wherein a penal statute in the international sense is defined as ‘one that awards a penalty to the state, or to a public officer in its behalf, or to a member of the public, suing in the interest of the whole community to redress a public wrong. * * * The purpose must be, not reparation to one aggrieved, but vindication of the public justice.’

On that view it may be that section 205(e) is not a penal statute, but, in our opinion, there is no question that under the rule of the O'Reilly case it is such a statute. In that case this court held to be penal a Massachusetts statute which was less punitive than section 205(e). The feature of a statute which distinguishes it as penal, in the view of this court, is the imposition of some punishment upon the defendant for the violation of the law, regardless of whether the penalty is recoverable by a private person or not. This distinction was pointed out in Gardner v. New York & N. E. R. Co., 17 R.I. 790, 24 A. 831, 832.

There a Connecticut statute that somewhat resembled the Massachusetts statute, which was involved in the O'Reilly case, in that it provided a remedy for damages to the person injured by its violation, was held to be not penal but remedial, because it provided for no recovery, by either the state or the injured person, of a penalty as punishment to the defendant for violating the statute. The court expressly stated that: ‘A penal statute is one by which some punishment is imposed for a violation of the law.’ And it pointed out that since, unlike the Massachusetts statute, none was provided for in the Connecticut statute, it was not penal but entirely remedial. The federal statute here not only provides for the recovery of a penalty by the person injured but also for the...

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  • Haywood v. Drown
    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • May 26, 2009
    ...The Rhode Island court nevertheless declined to exercise that jurisdiction under its decision in Robinson v. Norato, 71 R.I. 256, 258, 43 A.2d 467, 468 (1945), which had relied on a “universally acknowledged” doctrine “of private international law” as a basis for refusing to adjudicate fede......
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    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • May 26, 2009
    ...The Rhode Island court nevertheless declined to exercise that jurisdiction under its decision in Robinson v. Norato, 71 R.I. 256, 258, 43 A.2d 467, 468 (1945), which had relied on a “universally acknowledged” doctrine “of private international law” as a basis for refusing to adjudicate fede......
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    • U.S. Supreme Court
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    ...67 S.Ct. 810. The Rhode Island court nevertheless declined to exercise that jurisdiction under its decision in Robinson v. Norato, 71 R.I. 256, 258, 43 A.2d 467, 468 (1945), which had relied on a “universally acknowledged” doctrine “of private international law” as a basis for refusing to a......
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    • United States
    • U.S. Supreme Court
    • May 26, 2009
    ...The Rhode Island court nevertheless declined to exercise that jurisdiction under its decision in Robinson v. Norato, 71 R.I. 256, 258, 43 A.2d 467, 468 (1945), which had relied on a “universally acknowledged” doctrine “of private international law” as a basis for refusing to adjudicate fede......
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