Taub v. Bowles

• Decision Date: 06 June 1945
• Docket Number: No. 188.,188.
• Citation: 149 F.2d 817
• Parties: TAUB et al. v. BOWLES, Price Administrator.
• Court: U.S. Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

149 F.2d 817 (1945)

TAUB et al. v. BOWLES, Price Administrator.

No. 188.

United States Emergency Court of Appeals.

Heard February 20, 1945.

Filed June 6, 1945.

Before MARIS, Chief Judge, and LINDLEY and LAWS, Judges.

Irwin Geiger, of Washington, D. C. (Meyer Turin, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for complainants.

Nathaniel L. Nathanson, Associate Gen. Counsel, of Washington, D. C. (Richard H. Field, Gen. Counsel, John O. Honnold, Jr., Sp. Asst. to Associate Gen. Counsel, and Betty L. Brown, Atty., all of the Office of Price Administration, all of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for respondent.

Heard at Washington February 20, 1945.

LINDLEY, Judge.

Complainants, indicted in the District Court for conspiracy to violate certain regulations, applied to that court for leave to present to us a complaint objecting to the validity of the regulations. Leave having been granted them to file a complaint "setting forth objections to the validity of" Maximum Price Regulations 193 and 445, they now seek relief in accord with the provisions of Section 204(e) (1) of the Emergency Price Control Act, as amended, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 924(e) (1).

The complaint asserts that federal regulation of prices of intoxicating liquor conflicts with the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution; and, in the alternative, if the regulations are deemed within the federal constitutional power, that intoxicating liquor is not a commodity which Congress intended to be regulated; that such regulation subserves no purpose of the Act, and that the regulations are invalid by reason of failure of the Administrator to obtain approval of the Secretary of Agriculture as required by Section 3, Subsections (a, b, c, d, and e) of the Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 903 (a-e).

The Administrator moved to dismiss, asserting that certain of the objections now presented had not been mentioned in the application to the District Court and are, therefore, not properly cognizable by this court; that the United States has constitutional power to regulate the price of liquor; that liquor is a commodity subject to price control; that it is not an agricultural commodity within the contemplation of Section 3(c) of the Act, requiring approval of the Secretary of Agriculture before prices for such commodities shall be fixed and, finally, that the indictment is not of that character of proceedings defined in Section 204(e) (1) as justifying a complaint in this court.

Section 204(e) (1) provides that, subject to certain conditions, "in any criminal proceeding * * * brought pursuant to section 205 involving alleged violation of any provision of any regulation or order issued under section 2 or of any price schedule effective in accordance with the provisions of section 206, the defendant may apply to the court in which the proceeding is pending for leave to file in the Emergency Court of Appeals a complaint against the Administrator setting forth objections to the validity of any provision which the defendant is alleged to have violated." Section 205 (b), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 925 (b), provides that: "Any person who willfully violates any provision of section 4 of this Act, * * * shall, upon conviction thereof, be subject to" a specified fine and term of imprisonment. Respondent insists that Section 204(e) (1), brought into the Act by the Stabilization Extension Act of 1944, endows us with jurisdiction to entertain only a complaint seeking judgment of invalidity of regulations for direct violation of which a prosecution is brought pursuant to Section 205, and not one seeking relief where the charge is conspiracy to commit a violation of regulations under the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 88. The latter, he suggests is not a proceeding charging violation of regulations under Section 4(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 904 (a), which provides that it shall be unlawful "to sell or deliver any commodity, or in the course of trade or business to buy or receive any commodity * * * or otherwise to do or omit to do any act, in violation of any regulation or order * * * or to offer, solicit, attempt, or agree to do any of the foregoing."

The debates in Congress and the proceedings of its committees with respect to the amendments of 1944 disclose the matters with which Congress was concerned.¹ Representative Smith said: "A person may be indicted * * * on a regulation that is utterly void. He may be * * * tried * * * and * * * convicted, * * *, yet he can not * * * set up as a defense the invalidity of the regulation." Representative Dilweg inquired: "You mean that if there is an indictment for conspiracy, * * * the court cannot consider the validity of the regulation." Mr. Smith replied in the affirmative. Senator Wagner commented: "The procedure * * * has been made available to avoid the risk of injustice * * * under which a defendant who had excusably failed to file a protest * * * might be denied any opportunity to question the validity of the regulation." In the House it was said further: "This is an opportunity * * * to say whether * * * an aggrieved citizen ought to be able to appeal to some kind of court." "What the committee has done is to provide, that where a man has been prosecuted criminally, he may question the legality of the regulation * * *; if the district court decides that his objection is in good faith, the Emergency Court of Appeals will pass upon the legality or illegality." As observed in the writer's concurring remarks in Thomas Paper Stock Co. v. Bowles, Em.App., 148 F.2d 831, decided March 27, 1945, Senator Danaher, after commenting that the Supreme Court, in Yakus v. United States, 321 U.S. 414, 64 S.Ct. 660, 88 L.Ed. 834, had remarked that it made no decision on two questions, stated that "in what we have done we have perfected the two points as to which the Supreme Court has entered no decision * * *." Mr. Field, General Counsel for the Administrator, said before the committee: "It is imperative * * * that a man be given an adequate opportunity to challenge the validity of any * * * regulation."

We think it obvious, therefore, that Congress had in mind an amendment which would afford an opportunity to every diligent person charged with violating a regulation or with conspiring to violate it, to have a hearing upon the question of validity. But our problem goes further — it involves also the question of whether, in its final enactment, Congress has used language sufficient or appropriate to express an intent to include conspiracy indictments in its provisions for relief. Legislative history may be vitally important in interpretation of ambiguities, but if statutory language is unequivocal and capable of but one meaning, reference to extraneous events occurring during the consideration of proposed legislation, prior to its enactment, is futile, for, notwithstanding apparent resultant hardship or inconsistency, we can not add to or modify the literal mandate of the legislative department. United States v. Missouri Pacific R. R. Co., 278 U.S. 133, 49 S.Ct. 133, 73 L.Ed. 322; Caminetti v. United States, 242 U.S. 470, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442, L.R.A.1917F, 502, Ann.Cas.1917B, 1168; Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, 17 U.S. 122, 4 L.Ed. 529; See also II Sutherland, Statutory Construction, Sec. 4702.

Had Congress, in designating those proceedings in which defendants might apply for permission to attack the validity of regulations, been content with the phrase "in any civil or criminal proceeding * * * involving alleged violation of any provision of any regulation or order issued under section 2," it might be argued with plausibility that we should attribute to it an intent to include proceedings in the nature of conspiracies to violate regulations, for the word "involving" possesses connotations such as "implying," "including," "relating to," "growing out of," "necessitating as a result or legal consequence."² It might well be urged persuasively that the language of the Act quoted should be construed as including all senses commonly attributed to the word "involving" by the courts, including offenses "relating to" or "growing out of" violations of regulations. But the Congress did not stop with the language quoted. It expressly stipulated that the civil and criminal proceedings to which Section 204(e) (1) applies shall be those "brought pursuant to section 205." That section merely authorizes civil and criminal proceedings to be brought for violation of Section 4 which makes it unlawful to violate regulations and orders issued under the Act. Section 205 does not authorize or even refer to prosecutions for conspiracy to commit the offenses defined by Section 4. Conspiracies to commit such offenses are made punishable only by Section 37 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 88, commonly known as the Conspiracy Act. It follows, therefore, that a conspiracy prosecution brought under the Conspiracy Act cannot be held to be "brought pursuant to section 205" of the Emergency Price Control Act.

Moreover Congress proceeded to define specifically the relief which the court might grant and the circumstances justifying the relief by these further words "may apply to the court * * * for leave to file in the Emergency Court of Appeals a complaint * * * setting forth objections to the validity of any provision which defendant is alleged to have violated." These words are without ambiguity and must be given their unequivocal import. Consequently we are without authority to entertain a complaint presenting any subject matter other than "objections to the validity of any provision which" defendants are "alleged to have violated." Here the indictment contained no averment of violation of any regulation but rather only the charge of conspiracy. A conspiracy to commit a crime is a different offense from the crime which is the object of the conspiracy, and a prosecution for conspiracy is not a prosecution under the statute whose violation is its object....