Taylor v. Brown, 10.
Court | U.S. Temporary Emergency Court of Appeals |
Citation | 137 F.2d 654 |
Decision Date | 15 July 1943 |
Docket Number | No. 10.,10. |
Parties | TAYLOR v. BROWN, Price Adm'r. |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Stanley W. Taylor, in propria persona, and C. M. Walter, of Oakland, Cal., and John C. Stirrat, of San Francisco, Cal., for complainant.
David Ginsburg, Gen. Counsel, Thomas I. Emerson, Associate Gen. Counsel, Nathaniel L. Nathanson, Asst. Gen. Counsel, and Sol M. Linowitz, Carl H. Fulda, Maurice Alexandre, and Betty L. Brown, Attys., all of the Office of Price Administration, all of Washington, D. C., for respondent.
Before VINSON, Chief Judge, and MARIS and MAGRUDER, Judges.
Writ of Certiorari Denied November 15, 1943. See 64 S.Ct. 194.
The complainant is the owner of certain real property in San Francisco, California, consisting of 53 rental units. His property is situated in the San Francisco Bay Defense-Rental Area with respect to which the Price Administrator established maximum rents, effective July 1, 1942, by Maximum Rent Regulation No. 28 issued June 30, 1942.1 The regulation froze rents in the area at the level of March 1, 1942. Without showing that he had been adversely affected by the regulation the complainant filed a protest against it with the Administrator setting up as grounds of protest the unconstitutionality of the regulation and of the Emergency Price Control Act of 19422 under which it was issued. The Administrator denied the protest upon the ground that he was compelled to accept the constitutionality of the act. Thereupon the complainant filed his complaint in this court and in it, again without averring that he had been adversely affected, attacked the regulation and the act upon a broad constitutional front. We are thus called upon to consider the constitutional validity of the act and regulation generally and without regard to their particular application to the complainant.
We entirely agree with the three-judge district court in Henderson v. Kimmel, D. C.Kan.1942, 47 F.Supp. 635, that it is no longer open to doubt that rent control is necessary to the effective prosecution of the war effort. As Circuit Judge Phillips well said in that case (page 642 of 47 F. Supp.):
The experience of this and other countries has shown that inflation is one of the greatest dangers to the home front in time of war. As the Administrator has pointed out in his brief, rent control is of first importance in preventing inflation. In the average family budget rent is, after food, the largest single item. From 15% to 30% of the wage earner's income is ordinarily devoted to payment of rent. Studies indicate that wage earners with moderate incomes in large American cities usually spend 20% of their earnings for rent.3 In urban communities, three out of five families in 1940 were tenants and approximately $5,000,000,000 in rent was paid for nonfarm tenant-occupied dwelling units.4
Increases in rents have an immediate effect on wage earners. Other items are normally bought in small quantities and a small increase in the price of such commodities makes no great impression upon the wage earner. Rents are paid in lump sums, however, and wage earners are acutely aware of the fact that their living costs are increasing when rents are raised. Furthermore, in the case of most commodities, wage earners can reduce their purchases and thereby adjust their budgets to price increases; in the case of rental housing in war centers, however, workers generally have no choice, because the supply of housing is so severely limited. Accordingly, wage earners tend to demand wage increases to offset encroachments on their living standards resulting from higher rents. If such wage increases are not granted, labor friction and strikes may arise to impede the prosecution of the war. If wages are raised, the pressure for increased prices soon makes itself felt. Further demands for wage increases are thereby engendered. Thus an inflationary spiral initiated by rent increases gathers momentum. The vital importance of the rent control program to the war effort is thus apparent.5
We, therefore, pass to the question whether the act and the regulation are within the war power of Congress. That power is conferred by the following provisions of Art. 1, Sec. 8, of the Constitution:
The power thus granted is of the widest scope. Its breadth was well described by Justice Sutherland in United States v. Macintosh, 1931, 283 U.S. 605, 622, 51 S.Ct. 570, 574, 75 L.Ed. 1302, as follows: As was said by Chief Justice Hughes in Home Bldg. & L. Ass'n v. Blaisdell, 1934, 290 U.S. 398, 426, 54 S.Ct. 231, 235, 78 L.Ed. 413, 88 A.L.R. 1481: "It is a power to wage war successfully, and thus it permits the harnessing of the entire energies of the people in a supreme co-operative effort to preserve the nation." See also the Legal Tender Cases, 1870, 79 U.S. 457, 12 Wall. 457, 20 L.Ed. 287; Hirabayashi v. United States, June 21, 1943, 63 S.Ct. 1375, 87 L.Ed. ___.
We accordingly conclude that the power to fix maximum rents for housing accommodations is within the war power conferred upon Congress by the Constitution.
Here is a full and detailed statement of the Congressional purpose. It is followed in Section 2(b)7 by the specification of standards to which the rent regulations of the Administrator are to conform. The regulations may be applied only to housing accommodations in defense-rental areas in which defense activities shall have resulted or threatened to result in increases in rents for housing accommodations inconsistent with the purposes of the act. The maximum rents established by the regulations are to be generally fair and equitable and such as will effectuate the purposes of the act. The Administrator is authorized to fix maximum rents at the level of April 1, 1941, unless he finds that some other date (not earlier than April 1, 1940) is more appropriate to eliminate increases in rents due to defense...
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