Lockerty v. Phillips
| Decision Date | 10 May 1943 |
| Docket Number | No. 934,934 |
| Citation | 63 S.Ct. 1019,319 U.S. 182,87 L.Ed. 1339 |
| Parties | LOCKERTY et al. v. PHILLIPS, United States Attorney for District of New Jersey |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey.
Mr. Arthur T. Vanderbilt, of Newark, N.J., for appellants.
Mr. Thomas I. Emerson, of Washington, D.C., for appellee.
[Argument of Counsel from page 183 intentionally omitted] Mr. Chief Justice STONE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The question for our decision is whether the jurisdiction of the district court below to enjoin the enforcement of price regulations prescribed by the Administrator under the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 56 Stat. 23, was validly withdrawn by § 204(d) of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 924(d). Appellants brought this suit in the district court for the District of New Jersey for an injunction restraining appellee, the United States Attorney for that district, from the prosecution of pending and prospective criminal proceedings against appellants for violation of §§ 4(a) and 205(b) of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix §§ 904(a), 925(b), and of Maximum Price Regulation No. 169. In view of the provisions of § 204(d) of the Act, the district court of three judges, 28 U.S.C. § 380a, 28 U.S.C.A. § 380a dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction to entertain it.
The amended bill of complaint alleges that appellants are established merchants owning valuable wholesale meat businesses, in the course of which they purchase meat from packers and sell it at wholesale to retail dealers; that Maximum Price Regulation No. 169, promulgated by the Price Administrator under the purported authority of § 2(a) of the Act, 50 U.S.A.C.Appendix § 902(a), as originally issued and as revised, fixed maximum wholesale prices for specified cuts of beef; that in fixing such prices the Administrator had failed to give due consideration to the various factors affecting the cost of production and distribution of meat in the industry as a whole; that the Administrator had failed to fix or regulate the price of livestock; that the conditions in the industry—including the quantity of meat available to packers for distribution to wholesalers, the packers' expectation of profit, and the effect of these conditions upon the prices of meat sold by packers to wholesalers—are such that appellants are and will be unable to obtain a supply of meat from packers which they can resell to retail dealers within the prices fixed by Regulation No. 169; that enforcement of the Regulation will preclude appellants' continuance in business as meat wholesalers; that the Act as thus applied to appellants is a denial of due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, and involves an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to the Administrator; that appellee threatens to prosecute appellants for each sale of meat at a price greater than that fixed by the Regulation, and to subject them to the fine and imprisonment prescribed by §§ 4 and 205(b) of the Act for violations of the Act or of price regulations prescribed by the Administrator under the Act; and that such enforcement by repeated prosecutions of appellants will irreparably injure them in their business and property.
Section 203(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 923(a), sets up a procedure whereby any person subject to any provision of any regulation, order or price schedule promulgated under the Act may within sixty days 'file a protest specifically setting forth objections to any such provision and affidavits or other written evidence in support of such objections'. He may also protest later on grounds arising after the expiration of the original sixty days. The subsection directs that within a specified time
By § 204(a), 'Any person who is aggrieved by the denial or partial denial of his protest may, within thirty days after such denial, file a complaint with the Emergency Court of Appeals, created pursuant to subsection (c), spec- ifying his objections and praying that the regulation, order, or price schedule protested be enjoined or set aside in whole or in part.' Subsection (b) provides that no regulation, order, or price schedule, shall be enjoined 'unless the complainant establishes to the satisfaction of the court that the regulation, order, or price schedule is not in accordance with law, or is arbitrary or capricious'. Under subsections (b) and (d), decisions of the Emergency Court may, by writ of certiorari, be brought for review to the Supreme Court, which is required to advance the cause on its docket and to expedite the disposition of it.
Although by following the procedure prescribed by these provisions of the Act appellants could have raised and obtained review of the questions presented by their bill of complaint, they did not protest the price regulation which they challenge and they took no proceedings for review of it by the Emergency Court. Appellants are thus seeking the aid of the district court to restrain the enforcement of an administrative order without pursuing the administrative remedy provided by the statute (cf. Illinois Commerce Commission v. Thomson, 318 U.S. 675, 63 S.Ct 834, 839, 87 L.Ed. —-, decided April 12, 1943), and without recourse to the judicial review by the Emergency Court of Appeals and by this Court which the statute affords.
Moreover the statute vests jurisdiction to grant equitable relief exclusively in the Emergency Court and in this Court. Section 204(d) declares:
By this statute Congress has seen fit to confer on the Emergency Court (and on...
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