Payne v. Griffin

• Citation: 51 F. Supp. 588
• Decision Date: 30 August 1943
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 89.
• Parties: PAYNE v. GRIFFIN.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Middle District of Georgia

51 F. Supp. 588

PAYNE v. GRIFFIN.

Civil Action No. 89.

District Court, M. D. Georgia, Thomasville Division.

August 30, 1943.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Erle M. Donalson, of Bainbridge, Ga., for plaintiff.

A. B. Conger, of Bainbridge, Ga., for defendant.

Ralph R. Quillian, Chief Atty., OPA, of Atlanta, Ga., Perry Brannen, Chief Atty., OPA, of Savannah, Ga., and H. C. Eberhardt, Enforcement Atty., OPA, of Valdosta, Ga., for intervenor, Prentiss M. Brown, Administrator, Office of Price Administration.

DEAVER, District Judge.

This suit was brought by a tenant against a landlord under Section 205(e) of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 925(e), to recover a money judgment for an alleged violation of a regulation as therein provided. Defendant moved to dismiss on the ground that the act and the regulation creating the right of action are unconstitutional and void. The plaintiff contends that this court has no jurisdiction to pass upon the constitutionality of either the act or the regulation. The Administrator came into the case by intervention. He admits jurisdiction to determine the constitutionality of the act but denies jurisdiction to question the validity of the regulation.

I. Jurisdiction.

The act confers jurisdiction to try this case but in Section 204(d), 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix § 924(d) says that: "The Emergency Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court upon review of judgments and orders of the Emergency Court of Appeals, shall have exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of any regulation or order issued under section 2, of any price schedule effective in accordance with the provisions of section 206, and of any provision of any such regulation, order, or price schedule. Except as provided in this section, no court, Federal, State, or Territorial, shall have jurisdiction or power to consider the validity of any such regulation, order, or price schedule, or to stay, restrain, enjoin, or set aside, in whole or in part, any provision of this Act authorizing the issuance of such regulations or orders, or making effective any such price schedule, or any provision of any such regulation, order, or price schedule, or to restrain or enjoin the enforcement of any such provision."

By Article 3, Section 1, of the constitution, the judicial power of the United States is vested in a Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

A district court can entertain only such cases as Congress gives it jurisdiction to try. Jurisdiction to try any case or class of cases may be withheld altogether. But once Congress confers jurisdiction to try a case it cannot withhold power to decide the case according to the applicable law. The contention of the plaintiff is contrary to the decisions of the Supreme Court from Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 2 L.Ed. 60, down through the years to the present time.

If Congress prohibits an inferior court from trying a case, the court cannot entertain it and, if Congress confers jurisdiction to try a case, the court cannot refuse to accept jurisdiction. It is bound to hear and decide the case. But, having directed the court to try the case, Congress has no authority also to direct the court to render judgment in accordance with the terms of a void act in disregard of the supreme law of the land. The distinction is that, while Congress can determine what cases a court can try, it cannot direct what law shall control the decision.

In Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 544, 43 S.Ct. 394, 396, 67 L.Ed. 785, 24 A.L.R. 1238, is the following language: "The Constitution, by its own terms, is the supreme law of the land, emanating from the people, the repository of ultimate sovereignty under our form of government. A congressional statute, on the other hand, is the act of an agency of this sovereign authority, and if it conflict with the Constitution must fall; for that which is not supreme must yield to that which is. To hold it invalid (if it be invalid) is a plain exercise of the judicial power—that power vested in courts to enable them to administer justice according to law. From the authority to ascertain and determine the law in a given case, there necessarily results, in case of conflict, the duty to declare and enforce the rule of the supreme law and reject that of an inferior act of legislation which, transcending the Constitution, is of no effect and binding on no one. This is not the exercise of a substantive power to review and nullify acts of Congress, for no such substantive power exists. It is simply a necessary concomitant of the power to hear and dispose of a case or controversy properly before the court, to the determination of which must be brought the test and measure of the law."

In Smyth v. Ames, 169 U.S. 466, 527, 18 S.Ct. 418, 426, 42 L.Ed. 819, the court said: "The idea that any legislature, state or federal, can conclusively determine for the people and for the courts that what it enacts in the form of law, or what it authorizes its agents to do, is consistent with the fundamental law, is in opposition to the theory of our institutions. The duty rests upon all courts, federal and state, when their jurisdiction is properly invoked, to see to it that no right secured by the supreme law of the land is impaired or destroyed by legislation."

See Muskrat v. United States, 219 U.S. 346, 359, 31 S.Ct. 250, 55 L.Ed. 246; 2 Story on the Constitution, p. 451, citing Osborn v. Bank, 9 Wheat. 738, 819, 6 L.Ed. 204.

Again, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1, 62, 56 S.Ct. 312, 318, 80 L.Ed. 477, 102 A.L.R. 914, said: "There should be no misunderstanding as to the function of this court in such a case. It is sometimes said that the court assumes a power to overrule or control the action of the people's representatives. This is a misconception. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land ordained and established by the people. All legislation must conform to the principles it lays down. When an act of Congress is appropriately challenged in the courts as not conforming to the constitutional mandate, the judicial branch of the government has only one duty; to lay the article of the Constitution which is invoked beside the statute which is challenged and to decide whether the latter squares with the former. All the court does, or can do, is to announce its considered judgment upon the question. The only power it has, if such it may be called, is the power of judgment. This court neither approves nor condemns any legislative policy. Its delicate and difficult office is to ascertain and declare whether the legislation is in accordance with, or in contravention of, the provisions of the Constitution; and, having done that, its duty ends."

The Supreme Court, in Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238, 296, 56 S.Ct. 855, 866, 80 L.Ed. 1160, again spoke, as follows: "The supremacy of the Constitution as law is thus declared without qualification. That supremacy is absolute; the supremacy of a statute enacted by Congress is not absolute but conditioned upon its being made in pursuance of the Constitution. And a judicial tribunal, clothed by that instrument with complete judicial power, and, therefore, by the very nature of the power, required to ascertain and apply the law to the facts in every case or proceeding properly brought for adjudication, must apply the supreme law and reject the inferior statute whenever the two conflict. In the discharge of that duty, the opinion of the lawmakers that a statute passed by them is valid must be given great weight, Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 525, 544, 43 S.Ct. 394, 67 L.Ed. 785, 24 A.L.R. 1238; but their opinion, or the court's opinion, that the statute will prove greatly or generally beneficial is wholly irrelevant to the inquiry. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495, 549, 550, 55 S.Ct. 837, 79 L.Ed. 1570, 97 A.L.R. 947."

"Whenever, in pursuance of an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another, there is presented a question involving the validity of any act of any legislature, state or federal, and the decision necessarily rests on the competency of the legislature to so enact, the court must, in the exercise of its solemn duties, determine whether the act be constitutional or not." Chicago, etc., Railway Co. v. Wellman, 143 U.S. 339, 345, 12 S.Ct. 400, 402, 36 L.Ed. 176.

An unconstitutional law is no law and no court is bound to enforce it. 11 Am.Jur. p. 827, Sec. 148.

If a court has jurisdiction to try a case, it has inherent power to determine whether an act, on which the existence of the right of action depends, conforms to the Constitution. See 11 Am.Jur. p. 709, Secs. 86, 88 and cases cited in support of the text.

Decisions might be multiplied almost without number, but those cited are sufficient to show that the power of Congress to limit the jurisdiction of inferior courts refers to the character of cases and does not include power to limit the law to be applied in the trial of cases which the court has jurisdiction to hear. See In re American States Public Service Co., D.C., 12 F.Supp. 667, 690.

A contrary conclusion would enable Congress to require courts to enforce any act though clearly void. "Congress have not power to give original jurisdiction to the supreme court in other cases than those described in the constitution." Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137(2), 32 L.Ed. 60. If Congress can withhold power to determine the validity of an act from one inferior court, it could withhold such power from all inferior courts. It would follow that Congress could require an inferior court to render judgment in a case depending entirely on a void statute and prevent its validity from being passed upon by any inferior court. In a case, therefore, of which the Supreme Court has no original jurisdiction, the validity of the act could never be...