Amalgamated Meat Cutters & Butcher Work. v. Connally

Decision Date22 October 1971
Docket NumberCiv. A. No. 1833-71.
Citation337 F. Supp. 737
PartiesAMALGAMATED MEAT CUTTERS AND BUTCHER WORKMEN OF NORTH AMERICA, AFL-CIO, Plaintiff, v. John B. CONNALLY, Individually, and as Chairman of the Cost of Living Council, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — District of Columbia

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Albert Gore, Chicago, Ill., with whom Jerry Anker, Washington, D. C., and Soloman I. Hirsh, Chicago, Ill., were on the papers, for plaintiffs.

David J. Anderson, Dept. of Justice, with whom L. Patrick Gray, III, then Asst. Atty. Gen., Civil Div., Thomas A. Flannery, then U. S. Atty., and Harland F. Feathers and Stuart E. Schiffer, Dept. of Justice, were on the papers, for federal defendants.

Charles A. Horsky, Washington, D. C., for defendant Swift and Co.

Robert J. Corber, Washington, D. C., for defendant Armour & Co.

Richard J. Wertheimer, Washington, D. C., for defendant Hygrade Food Products Corp.

Laurence Wood, Washington, D. C., for defendants Wilson Certified Foods, Wilson-Sinclair and Wilson Beef & Lamb Co.

Stanley R. Strauss, Washington, D. C. for defendant Cudahy Packing Co.

Before LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge, and ROBINSON and RICHEY, District Judges.

OPINION IN SUPPORT OF ORDER DENYING INJUNCTION

LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:

In this litigation Plaintiff Union, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters1 suing on its own behalf and on behalf of its affiliated local unions, attacks the constitutionality of the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 (Act2), contained in Title II of Public Law 91-379, 84 Stat. 799, and appended as Annex A, and governmental actions thereunder.

Two different actions are consolidated in the complaint. Count II seeks to require the major meat packing companies3 to perform their obligations, under their 1970 collective bargaining agreements with the Union, to grant a general wage increase of twenty-five cents an hour effective September 6, 1971. The Union asserts this wage increase was agreed upon in April 1970 after long and difficult negotiations, that the parties carefully weighed alternative benefits and concessions before agreeing on the specific provisions, and that its inclusion was decisive in obtaining the Union's acceptance. The employers respond that the implementation of the wage increase obligation would violate Executive Order 11615, 36 F.R. 15727, promulgated by President Nixon August 15, 1971, appended as Annex B. This Executive Order, Stabilization of Prices, Rents, Wages and Salaries, establishes a 90-day price-wage freeze, a requirement that "prices, rents, wages and salaries shall be stabilized for a period of 90 days" at levels no greater than the highest rates pertaining to a substantial volume of actual transactions by the seller of commodities or services involved in a specified base period preceding August 15. The Union's position is that this defense is insufficient as a matter of law because the Act is unconstitutional and the Executive Order invalid.

The broader aspect of the controversy before us appears in Count I of the complaint, an action brought against John B. Connally, who as Secretary of the Treasury is Chairman of the Cost of Living Council, and the other officials constituting the Council. In Executive Order 11615 President Nixon established the Cost of Living Council "which shall act as an agency of the United States," specified that it shall be composed of certain designated officials as members4 and "delegated to the Council all of the powers conferred on the President by the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970."

In Count I the Union seeks a declaratory judgment that the Act and Executive Order 11615 are illegal and unconstitutional, and also an injunction against the officials named as defendants, individually and as members of the Council, restraining and enjoining them from administering or giving any force or effect to the Executive Order and the Act. In view of the prayer for injunction a three-judge District Court was convened October 3, 1971, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 2282, 2284. We heard oral argument October 8, 1971 on the Union's motion for preliminary injunction. The court rejects the Union's contention that the Act and Executive Order are invalid on their face, for the reasons set forth below.

A. GOVERNMENT'S CONTENTION OF ADEQUACY OF REMEDY AT LAW

The federal defendants raise a threshold claim that the Union's prayer for an injunction must be dismissed because it has an adequate remedy at law. This contention would not remove the litigation, since the Union could maintain action against the employers and challenge the constitutionality of the Act and order presented as a defense. However the jurisdiction of this three-judge district court depends on both a substantial constitutional question and equity jurisdiction of the action for injunction. We conclude we have requisite equity jurisdiction.

While under familiar doctrine, a litigant's claim to injunctive relief requires a showing of irreparable injury and inadequacy of legal remedies, these are "practical terms." Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U.S. 500, 507, 79 S.Ct. 948, 3 L.Ed.2d 988 (1959). The mere fact that a court may ultimately decide in the exercise of its discretion, including balance of conveniences, that an injunction should not be issued — even assuming for purpose of decision that plaintiff has a valid claim on the merits — does not negative equity jurisdiction. Where the action seeks to enjoin enforcement of a Federal statute on the ground of unconstitutionality, this would not negative the jurisdiction of a statutory three-judge district court. Broadly speaking such actions to contest a statute's validity, like actions to review Federal administrative action5, may be maintained by a proceeding for injunction or declaratory judgment or both.

Even where a declaratory judgment is available, the three-judge district court has equity jurisdiction so long as there is a reasonable possibility that it may approve of an injunction in order to give complete protection to constitutional rights6. Relegating the Union to the remedies contemplated by the Government would involve a multiplicity of litigation. Multiple damage actions, or their declaratory equivalent, would be required by this Union, and possibly also by its affiliates, not only against the defendant meat packers, but also against various employers in other industries — retail foods; fur and leather; food-processing; poultry and seafood; canning; and miscellaneous non-food industries. It is alleged that the Union and its affiliates have entered into collective bargaining agreements with employers, providing for increases scheduled to take effect during the 90-day freeze period of Executive Order 11615, affecting in excess of 150,000 employees.

There is palpably a significant difference to these thousands of employees between the receipt of these increases at the times agreed, available to meet any obligations programmed on their receipt, and any subsequent declaration of right. We need not pursue the question whether a court might have reason to withhold injunctive relief, particularly a preliminary injunction, even though it had been convinced of the merit of the Union's substantive claims. As we have indicated we do not accept the Union's position on the merits. But for present purposes we are concerned with a threshold objection, that the lack of equity jurisdiction precludes our even giving consideration to the merits of the Union's position. That contention we cannot accept. Applying familiar principles, the Union's action, seeking to prevent hardship to its members and multiplicity of litigation, clearly comes within the court's equity jurisdiction.

B. CLAIM OF UNCONSTITUTIONALITY OF ACT AS DELEGATION OF LEGISLATIVE POWER

The main claim of the Union is that the Act unconstitutionally delegates legislative power to the President, in violation of the general constitutional principle of the Separation of Powers, and in contravention of Article I, Section I of the Constitution, which provides: "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States."

The Union's position is that the Act's broad authority to the President "to issue such orders and regulations as he may deem appropriate to stabilize prices, rents, wages and salaries" vests "unbridled legislative power in the President," a "naked grant of authority" to determine whether they "will be controlled, and the scope, manner and timing of those controls."

The constitutional question thus put to this court is novel and fraught with difficulty, for we cannot blink the broad discretion given to the President by the Act.

The matter has been argued to us on principle and precedent. The divergences in the principles perceived by the litigants are matched by divergences in the precedents they summon. The Government cites numerous authorities but relies most heavily on Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 64 S.Ct. 660, 88 L.Ed. 834 (1944), sustaining the grant in the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 of broad price-fixing authority. The Union particularly invokes the 1935 decisions in Schechter Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570, and Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan, 293 U.S. 388, 55 S.Ct. 241, 79 L.Ed. 446, holding invalid provisions of the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 16, 1933, 48 Stat. 195.

We are of the view that the Yakus ruling and principles there applied provide the more meaningful guidance for the novel problem at hand, and that this constitutional assault cannot be sustained. We review the several interrelated considerations that lead us to this conclusion.

1. Permissibility of delegation of legislative power, within limits

We may usefully begin with the modest observation that the Constitution does not forbid every delegation of "legislative" power. This was...

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