Ebeling v. Woods

• Decision Date: 10 June 1949
• Docket Number: No. 13791.,13791.
• Citation: 175 F.2d 242
• Parties: EBELING v. WOODS, Housing Expediter.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

175 F.2d 242 (1949)

EBELING v. WOODS, Housing Expediter.

No. 13791.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

June 10, 1949.

Michael J. Ebeling, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant.

Nathan Siegel, Special Litigation Attorney, Office of the Housing Expediter, Washington, D. C. (Ed Dupree, General Counsel, Hugo V. Prucha, Assistant General Counsel, and Francis X. Riley, Special Litigation Attorney, Office of the Housing Expediter, Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellee.

Before SANBORN, WOODROUGH, and JOHNSEN, Circuit Judges.

JOHNSEN, Circuit Judge.

The Administrator, Office of Temporary Controls, (succeeded by the Housing Expediter, 12 F.R. 2645, who thereafter was substituted as plaintiff) brought suit against appellant on September 26, 1947, under the provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, as amended, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 901 et seq. The Price Control Act had expired on June 30, 1947.

The complaint by its terms sought (1) an injunction restraining appellant from further violating the Rent Regulation for Housing, 8 F.R. 7322, promulgated under the Price Control Act; (2) a mandatory order under the Price Control Act requiring appellant to make restitution to a tenant of a $500 bonus collected from the latter on July 31, 1946, in the renting of a housing accommodation located in the St. Louis Defense-Rental Area, 7 F.R. 3195; and (3) a judgment for damages under the Price Control Act on behalf of the United States, in twice the amount of the $500 rental overcharge.

The District Court denied the request for damages as being in any event barred by the one-year limitation in 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 925(e), of the Price Control Act. It refused also to issue a prohibitory injunction under the expired Act against further violation of the Rent Regulation for Housing. It did, however, enter an order in the nature of a mandatory injunction requiring appellant to make restitution to the tenant of the $500 overcharge which he had collected. It is this restitution order which is the subject of the appeal here.

Appellant's principal contention for reversal is that the court had no jurisdiction to enter any restitution order under the Price Control Act after June 30, 1947, when the Act expired, and particularly so where, as here, the suit had not been pending on that date.

The Act expressly provided, 50 U.S.C. A.Appendix, § 901(b), that, "as to offenses committed, or rights or liabilities incurred, prior to such termination date, the provisions of this act and all regulations, orders, price schedules, and requirements thereunder shall be treated as still remaining in force for the purpose of sustaining any proper suit, action, or prosecution with respect to any such right, liability, or offense."

The Supreme Court has held that section 205(a) of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 925(a), by its language and its implications, created in the Price Administrator (to whose functions the plaintiff here had succeeded) a right to the entry of an order for the restitution of overcharges under the Act, limited only by the court's exercise of sound equitable discretion in relation to the situation involved. Porter v. Warner Holding Co., 328 U.S. 395, 66 S.Ct. 1086, 90 L.Ed. 1332.

This right, granted to the Price Administrator in the public interest, as much as any other created by the Act, has been recognized as having a survival need, in effectuating the purpose of the statute, and has been given a survival effect under the saving-clause language, "any * * * right, liability or offense." Thus, in Creedon v. Randolph, 5 Cir., 165 F.2d 918, a trial court's refusal to order restitution of some rent overcharges was reversed after the Price Control Act had expired. And this Court, subsequent to the termination of the Act, has entered affirmances of orders for the restitution of rent overcharges under it, Warner Holding Co. v. Creedon, 8 Cir., 166 F.2d 119, and Edwards v. Woods, 8 Cir., 168 F.2d 827.

Appellant argues, however, that the cases just referred to are distinguishable from the one here, in that the actions there had been commenced prior to the expiration of the Act. But the saving clause does not condition the survival of rights existing under the Act upon their having been placed in suit before the Act's termination. And in Woods v. Richman, 9 Cir., 174 F.2d 614, the restitution suit was commenced subsequent to the termination of the Act.

According to the Warner Holding Co. case, supra, 328 U.S. at page 400, 66 S.Ct. at page 1090, 90 L.Ed. 1332, a restitution order "may be considered as an order appropriate and necessary to enforce compliance with the Act," under the provisions of 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 925(a). The Court's opinion makes clear that the provision in the Act authorizing the issuance of such an order was designed not simply to assure subsequent obedience to the Act while it was in effect (which the provision for a prohibitory injunction would be as capable, or more so, of doing) but to serve also generally to effectuate the purposes of the Act.

One of the fundamental purposes of the Price Control Act was, of course, to prevent inflation. Hecht Co. v. Bowles, 321 U.S. 321, 331, 64 S.Ct. 587, 592, 88 L.Ed. 754; 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 901(a). On this aspect, the Act attempted to achieve its purpose (1) by making overcharging illegal and providing remedies, civil and criminal, to deter such acts from being done, and (2) by a neutralizing of the inflationary effect of any overcharge made, through a syphoning off of that effect by a legal action for damages or by an application on the part of the Administrator for an order of restitution. 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 925(a), (b), (c) and (e). As the Supreme Court said in the Warner Holding case, supra, ibid., in relation to the significance of a restitution order, "the statutory policy of...