Source: https://openjurist.org/330/us/127
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 10:20:19+00:00

Document:
Argued Oct. 17, 18, 1946.
If this contention is treated as an objection to the state's capacity to bring this suit, as no objection was made until the memorandum for the respondent on the petition for certiorari, it would be out of time. A failure to object in the trial court to a party's capacity is a waiver of that defect. Parker v. Motor Boat Sales, 314 U.S. 244, 251, 62 S.Ct. 221, 225, 86 L.Ed. 184. On the other hand, if the contention is treated as meaning that no justiciable controversy as to the constitutionality of § 12(a) exists because petitioner suffers no injury which it may protect legally from the withdrawal by the United States of a portion of a grant-in-aid, the objection, as it questions judicial power to act on that point, is timely although first made in this Court.3 We think that the latter position more correctly reflects respondent's contention. The Commission urges the cases listed in note 2 above as showing that the relation between the state and federal government arising out of grants-in-aid are political and that the order of the Commission that Paris be removed was not mandatory. We therefore treat the issue as properly before us.
The issue is whether Oklahoma can challenge the constitutionality of § 12 on statutory review of a Commission order. Subsection (c) gives to any party aggrieved a judicial review of the Commission order. The review is on the entire record and extends to questions of fact and questions of law. The order is to be affirmed if the court determines that it is 'in accordance with law.' If the court determines the order is not in accordance with law, the proceeding is to be remanded to the Commission 'with directions either to make such determination or order as the court shall determine to be in accordance with law or to take such further proceedings as in the opinion of the court, the law requires.'4 We think the challenge can be made in these review proceedings to the constitutionality of the law upon which the order under review is predicated.
The activities of the Highway Commission of Oklahoma were financed in part by loans and grants from a Federal agency during all the pertinent times. This was the organization of which Paris was a member. During the period in question, January 15, 1943, to October 18, 1943, while Paris was also Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, the United States through allotment by federal statute contributed over $2,000,000 for the highway work of the Oklahoma Commission.5 Nothing indicates that these sums were to be received by Oklahoma otherwise than in accordance with regular statutory apportionment among the states of federal highway funds and we assume the sums were to be so received by Oklahoma. Congress may create legally enforceable rights where none before existed. Payments were not made at the unfettered inclination of a federal disbursing officer or highway agency but according to statutory standards, compliance with which entitled Oklahoma to receive her proper share of the federal appropriations for highway construction through state agencies. If it were not for § 12, Oklahoma would have been legally entitled to receive payment from the federal disbursing office of the sums, including the amount that § 12(b) authorizes the Civil Service Commission to require the disbursing or allocating federal agency to withhold from its loans or grants.6 Oklahoma had a legal right to receive federal highway funds by virtue of certain congressional enactments and under the terms therein prescribed. Violation of such a statutory right normally creates a justiciable cause of action even without a specific statutory authorization for review.7 It may be that before the payment of those funds to Oklahoma Congress could have withdrawn the grant without legal responsibility for such action either in its officers or the National Government. Perhaps, before disbursement, it could add of its own free will any additional requirements but when it erected administrative bars, that is, a condition that a part of the allotment might be withheld by action of the Commission, with judicial review of the Commission's determination, we think those bars left to Oklahoma the right to receive all federal highway funds allotted to that state, subject only to the condition that the limitation on the right to receive the funds complied with the Constitution. Issues presented by this suit, even though raised by a state, are closely akin to private wrongs.8 Either the state employee or the state may be the party aggrieved and may maintain the action for judicial review. The power to examine into the constitutionality of the conditions was given the federal courts by the grant of the authority to review the legality of the Civil Service order. Therefore when by § 12 a right of review of the Civil Service Commission's order is given to Oklahoma, we are of the opinion that the constitutionality of the statutory basis, § 12(a), of the order is open for adjudication.
Congress has power to fix the conditions for review of administrative orders.9 By providing for judicial review of the orders of the Civil Service Commission, Congress made Oklahoma's right to receive funds a matter of judicial cognizance. Oklahoma's right became legally enforceable. Interference with the payment of the full allotment of federal highway funds to Oklahoma made the statutory proceeding to set aside the order a case or controversy between Oklahoma and the Commission whose order Oklahoma was authorized to challenge.10 A reading of § 12 will show the special interest Oklahoma had in preventing the exercise of the Civil Service Commission's power to direct that Oklahoma's funds be withheld.11 It was named as the employer affected by § 12(a). Notices were sent to it. Funds allotted to Oklahoma were to be withheld under certain conditions. It was a 'party aggrieved.'12 When it brought this suit, under this statutory authority, Oklahoma was entitled to a judicial determination as to whether the order of the Civil Service Commission was 'in accordance with law.' Was the order within the competency of the Commission? That question of competency included the issue of the constitutionality of the basis for the order, § 12(a).13 Only if the statutory basis for an order is within constitutional limits, can it be said that the resulting order is legal. To determine that question, the statutory review must include the power to determine the constitutionality of § 12(a).
We do not think the rule that one may not in the same proceeding both rely upon and assail a statute14 is applicable to the present situation. In the cases the Government cites, the litigants had received or sought advantages from the statute that they wished to attack, advantages other than the mere right to sue. What we are concerned with in this case is not an estoppel to sue but the allowable scope of the statutory jurisdiction.
Second. Petitioner's chief reliance for its contention that § 12(a) of the Hatch Act is unconstitutional as applied to Oklahoma in this proceeding is that the so-called penalty provisions invade the sovereignty of a state in such a way as to violate the Tenth Amendment18 by providing for 'possible forfeitures of state office or alternative penalties against the state.' Oklahoma says § 12(c) 'provides that the commencement of an appeal from an order of the Commission: '* * * shall not operate as a stay of such determination or order unless (1) it is specifically so ordered by the court, and (2) such officer or employee is suspended from his office or employment during the pendency of such proceedings. * * *" The coercive effect of the authorization to withhold sums allocated to a state is relied upon as an interference with the reserved powers of the state.
Finally, petitioner says that § 12(c), note 1, supra, authorizes a review of 'every minute detail of the case' to 'determine whether sufficient facts exist to support the order of the Commission, decide whether the statute has been reasonably and just y applied, and independently resolve the entire question as though the federal court had been the forum in the first instance.' The basis for this argument in so far as it differs from that referred to in the preceding paragraph, is drawn from the language of § 12(c) that 'The review by the court shall be on the record entire, including all of the evidence taken on the hearing, and shall extend to questions of fact and questions of law. * * * The court shall affirm the Commission's determination or order, or its modified determination or order, if the court determines that the same is in accordance with law.' As the facts were stipulated and no objection has been taken to the findings of fact, D.C., 61 F.Supp. 355, 357(5); 10 Cir., 153 F.2d 280, 283, the attack, on this issue, is limited to an examination into whether or not the Commission abused its discretion in the order of removal. As heretofore stated, the provisions for review underwent changes during the passage of the act.24 As finally adopted, however, the reviewing court is directed to remand when it determines that the action of the Commission 'is not in accordance with law.' § 12(c)25 The question of 'the removal of the officer or employee,' § 12(b), note 1, supra, we think is a matter of administrative discretion. Since under Rule I of the Civil Service Commission the taking of 'any active part in political management or political campaigns' had been determined by the Commission to include service on a political committee, see notes 37 and 38 of United Public Workers v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 67 S.Ct. 556 it is clear Mr. Paris' position violated § 15 of the Hatch Act. Note 1, supra. It could hardly be said that determination of the Commission in ordering his removal was an abuse of its discretion. See 61 F.Supp. at page 357(6) and (7); 153 F.2d at pages 283, 284.
It is of course settled that this Court must consider whenever the question is raised or even though not raised by counsel, the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts as well as the jurisdiction of this Court. Mansfield, C. & L.M.R. Co. v. Swan, 111 U.S. 379, 382, 4 S.Ct. 510, 511, 28 L.Ed. 462. But whether a State has standing to urge a claim of constitutionality under a Congressional grant-in-aid statute does not involve 'jurisdiction' in the sense of a court's power but only the capacity of the State to be a litigant to invoke that power. In this litigation the Government did not challenge the standing of Oklahoma to question the constitutionality of the Act until the case came here. I think it is too late to raise that question at this stage. Assuming that it is here, it is my view that under the Hatch Act, in the legislative and judicial context in which it must be read, the State can question only the correctness of the procedure and the determination of the Civil Service Commission, not the validity of the Act. Section 12(b), (c), 54 Stat. 767 amending 53 Stat. 1147, 18 U.S.C. § 61l(b) and (c), 18 U.S.C.A. § 61l(b, c).
See Federal Highway Act, 42 Stat. 212, as amended, 23 U.S.C. §§ 1—117, 23 U.S.C.A. §§ 1—117.
It cites 86 Cong.Rec. 2354, 2429, 2440, 2468—2474, 9448, 9452; H.Rep. 2376, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 9.
Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 593—598, 57 S.Ct. 883, 893—894, 81 L.Ed. 1279, 109 A.L.R. 1293; United States v. Bekins, 304 U.S. 27, 51—54, 58 S.Ct. 811, 815—817, 82 L.Ed. 1137. A review of grants-in-aid will be found in 8 American Law School Review, Corwin: National-State Cooperation, 687, 698.
See 86 Cong.Rec. 2468—2474; S. 3046 in the House of Representatives, Union Calendar No. 924, June 4, 1940, pp. 4 and 17; H.Rep.No. 2376, 76th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 9. The amendment which resulted in the present form of the section appears at 86 Cong.Rec. 9448.

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