The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1943-01-14
Miss Perkins Wins
Subpoena Powers
District Tribundl Overruled
By Supreme Court In Up
holdinq All For Data

hington-Secretary Perkins was
upheld and Federal District Court
was rebuked by the Supreme Court in
a case where the lower tribunal inter
fered with the Labor Secretary's right
to subpoena payroll records of the
Endicott-Johnson Company, nationally
known shoe manufacturers.
For majority of six, Justice Jack
son said that Congress Submitted
administration of the Walsh-Healey
Public Contracts Act to the judgment
of the Secretary of Labor, not to the
judgment of the courts" But Justice
Murphy, speaking also for Justice
Roberts, denied that the District Court
must mechanically" enforce Miss Per-
kins' subpoena, and added that the
subpoena power under the direction
of weil-meaning but over-zealous Off
cials may at times become instruments
of intolerable oppression and injus-
tice"
In effect, the majority held that
Federal courts should not make indie
pendent Investigations to determine
whether an administrative agency had
jurisdiction to issue a subpoena.
The case originated in connection
with government contracts for shoes,
designated to be made in the COM
pany's Binghamton plant. Secretary
Perkins, deciding that minimum wage
stipulatiOns had been violated in that
plant, and that overtime had not been
paid correctly in other plants of the
concern, demanded records relating to
payrOllS in the other plants.
When Endicott- Johnson said that
these payrolls We're irrelevant, the
District Court, Mr.. Jackson explained,
overruled Secretary Perkins conten-
tiOn that it was for her to decide
this issue in the administrative pro-
ceeding," and set the case down for
| trial on question of whether the Walsh
Healey act and the contracts covered
the separate plants.
I'VE think" said Justice Jackson,
that the facts left no doubt that uIl-
der the statute determination of that
| issue was primarily the duty of the
Secretary to administer its provisions.
Congress submitted the administration
of the act to the judgment of the Secre-
| tary of Labor, not to the judgment of
| the courts"
Secretary Perkins, the majority
held, could not perform ''her full
statutory duty until she aXamined un-
der payments wherever the coverag &c
extended, because under payment was
Indispensable, albeit not the only, ele-
ment of proof of violation"
THE consequence of the action of
the District Court" he went on. "was
to disable the Secretary from render
ing complete decision on the alleged
violation as Congress had directed he,
to do
In his dissent, Justice Murphy con
ceded that administrative agencies
should not be subject to ill-advised in
trusions by courts, but he added:
Yet if they are freed of all re-
Straint upon inquiSitOrial activities ant
are allowed uncontrolled discretion il
the exercise of the sovereign power OF
government to invade private affairs
through the use of the subpoena, under
the discretion of over-zealouS officials
they may ut times become instruments
of intolerabe oppression and injustice
Congress evidently intended to keel
the instant subpoena power within
limits and clearly must have meant
for the courts to perform more thar
Il routine ministerial function in pass
ing upon such applications