Parker v. Fleming

• Decision Date: 20 January 1947
• Docket Number: No. 80,80
• Parties: PARKER et al. v. FLEMING
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

329 U.S. 531

67 S.Ct. 463

91 L.Ed. 479

PARKER et al.

v FLEMING.

No. 80.

Argued Dec. 18, 1946.

Decided Jan. 20, 1947.

Judicial review of price administrator's general regulations and orders issued under Emergency Price Control Act were intended by congress to be limited to relatively few of the Millions of people who would be affected thereby, to avoid delay and difficulty in administering act with efficiency and expedition deemed necessary to accomplish broad purpose of act. Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, §§ 203(a), 204(a, b), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, §§ 923(a), 924(a, b).

Whether person is 'subject' to order of price administrator issued under Emergency Price Control Act § as to be entitled to make protest upon which judicial review may be had, depends to some extent upon whether order immediately, substantially and adversely affects such person, as well as whether order requires or prohibits action by him. Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, § 203(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 923(a).

Apartment house tenants were immediately, substantially and adversely affected by order of Price Administrator directing issuance of certificate authorizing eviction proceedings, and hence were 'subject' to order so as to be entitled to make protest upon which judicial review could be had, whether or not administrator's regulations gave tenants vested right to remain in possession. Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, §§ 2, 4(a), 203(a), 204(a, b), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix §§ 902, 904(a), 923(a), 924(a, b).

The Emergency Price Control Act was intended in part to prevent excessive rents in the public interest, and anti-eviction regulations of price administrator promulgated pursuant to the act were specifically designed to prevent manipulative renting practices which would result in excessive rents. Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, § 2(d) as amended 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 902(d).

Mr.Alexander Pfeiffer, of New York City, for petitioners,

Mr. Carl A. Auerbach, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.

Mr. Justice BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.

Petitioners are tenants of a New York apartment house. Their landlords applied for a certificate from the New York Area Rent Director authorizing eviction proceedings in the State courts.¹ Section 6 of the Rent Regulations for New York City, issued by the Price Administrator under authority of § 2 of the Emergency Price Control Act, 56 Stat. 23, 58 Stat. 632, 50 U.S.C.App. Supp. V, § 902, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 902, prohibits landords from instituting such proceedings except under certain specific conditions not here relevant,² or when a special certificate authorizing eviction is issued by the Area Rent Director upon his finding, for example, that failure to authorize eviction would impose 'substantial hardship' upon the landlords.³

In this case the Area Rent Director refused to issue the requested certificate after extensive hearings at which both the landlords and the tenants presented evidence. Denial was based on a finding that the landlords had wholly failed to meet the re ulation's conditions; that their request was part of a concerted plan to evade the Price Control Act; and that a fraud had been perpetrated against the OPA. The Regional Rent Director affirmed this ruling. On protest by the landlords, the Price Administrator reversed the ruling of the Area Director and ordered that the certificate be issued. Petitioners thereupon filed a protest of their own with the Administrator. When the Administrator dismissed this protest, they sought relief in the Emergency Court of Appeals, complaining that the Administrator's order was 'not in accordance with law' and was 'arbitrary and capricious.' On motion of the Administrator, that action was dismissed on the ground that petitioners were not 'subject to' the Administrator's order and therefore had no right to protest or have judicial review of the dismissal of their protest. Parker v. Porter, 154 F.2d 830.⁴ We granted certiorari because of the importance of the issue raised. 328 U.S. 828, 66 S.Ct. 1024.

Section 204(a) of the Emergency Price Control Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 924(a), provides that 'Any person who is aggrieved by the denial * * * of his protest' against an order of the Price Administrator issued under § 2 of the Act may, upon complaint to the Emergency Court of Appeals, secure a judicial review of the Administrator's denial of such 'protest.' Under § 204(b) that Court can enjoin or set aside the protested 'order' in whole or in part only if it is satisfied that the order 'Is not in accordance with law, or is arbitrary or capricious.' But § 203(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 203(a), denies the right to make a 'protest' upon which review may be had to all but persons who are Subject to any provision of such * * * order.' The Emergency Court of Appeals did not question that the petitioners were 'aggrieved,' within the meaning of § 204(b) by the Administrator's special order authorizing their landlord to institute legal proceedings to evict them from their apartments. See Federal Communications Commission v. Sanders Bros. Radio Station, 309 U.S. 470, 476, 477, 60 S.Ct. 693, 698, 84 L.Ed. 869. Review was denied solely on the ground that they were not 'subject to' that order within the meaning of § 203(a).

In deciding a case concerning review of the Administrator's order granting a special exception to one of his general regulations, we are mindful that the legislative history of the Price Control Act strongly indicates that judicial review of the Administrator's general regulations and orders was intended by Congress to be limited to relatively few of the millions of people who would be more or less affected by them. Congress did not provide for protest and judicial review of general price orders by the great mass of consumers because of an apprehension that this might cause delay and difficulty in administering the Price Control Act with the efficiency and expedition deemed necessary to accomplish its broad purpose.⁵ Only a few categories of persons whom the Act affected and whose protests, if reviewed would not have these consequences, were specifically permitted by the Act to protest and have general price orders affecting them judicially reviewed.⁶ The Administrator and the courts have adhered to this congressional policy. See e.g. 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.

Procedural Regulation No. 1 of the Office of Price Administration, 7 Fed.Reg. 971, defined a person as 'subject to' a general price regulation or order, and therefore entitled to protest and obtain judicial review of it, only when such regulation or order 'prohibits or requires action by him.' The Emergency Court of Appeals sustained the regulation which contained this definition. Buka Coal Co. v. Brown, 133 F.2d 949, 952. But in other special situations not directly involving general price-fixing orders the words 'subject to' have been construed more broadly by the Administrator and the Emergency Court of Appeals.

Revised Procedural Regulation No. 1, 7 F.R. 8961, promulgated by the Administrator, provides that agricultural producers may protest an order which denies them a subsidy granted by Congress as one of the mechanisms of the price control program, the regulation stating that such a producer 'shall be considered to be subject to a maximum price regulation.' And in Illinois Packing Co. v. Snyder, 151 F.2d 337, the Emergency Court of Appeals held that meat packers, denied such a subsidy under regulations of the Defense Supplies Corporation promulgated under the same authority on which Office of Price Administration orders were based, were subject to and could protest against such regulations. The Court there said that: 'If anybody could be 'subject to' a provision of the subsidy regulation, complainant certainly would meet this requirement, since it claims to be excluded from the subsidy by a discriminatory and unlawful condition inserted in the subsidy regulation by Amendment No. 2. Since section 204(d) confers upon this court 'jurisdiction to determine the validity of any regulation or order issued under Section 2,' and since Amendment No. 2 is such a regulation or order, it is inadmissible to put upon the phrase 'any person subject to any provision's of a regulation under section 2 and interpretation which...