Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/337/78/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 00:37:56+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 337 › United States v. National City Lines, Inc.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), incorporated in the revision of the Judicial Code effective September 1, 1948, the doctrine of forum non conveniens is made applicable to civil suits by the Government against corporations under the antitrust laws. Ex parte Collett, ante, p. 337 U. S. 55; Kilpatrick v. Texas & Pacific R. Co., ante p. 337 U. S. 75. Pp. 337 U. S. 79-84.
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a), a Federal District Court in which the Government had instituted a civil suit against certain corporations under the Sherman Act transferred it to a District Court in another District. 80 F.Supp. 734. The Government moved in this Court for leave to file a petition for writ of certiorari. The case was assigned for hearing on the motion. 335 U.S. 897. Motion denied, p. 337 U. S. 84.
The issue here is whether the 1948 revision of the Judicial Code, Title 28, United States Code, extends the doctrine of forum non conveniens to antitrust suits. The Government's complaint in this civil suit alleged that respondent corporations have conspired to obtain control of local transportation companies in at least 44 cities in 16 states in different sections of the country, in order to restrain and monopolize interstate commerce in busses and the petroleum and other supplies incident thereto, in violation of §§ 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, 26 Stat. 209, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1, 2.
Again the District Court below granted the motion. It ordered the case transferred. 80 F.Supp. 734 (1948). The Government thereupon submitted in this Court a motion for leave to file petition for writ of certiorari. We assigned the case for hearing on this motion. 335 U.S. 897 (1948).
change the law -- indeed, the Government urges us to disregard the reviser's notes which were printed in the House Reports. [Footnote 2] We cannot accept this position, for the reasons discussed in our previous decisions today. The reviser's notes are so obviously authoritative in perceiving the meaning of the Code that the Government itself, in discussing a section other than § 1404(a), refers to them in its brief in this case. And we have already had occasion to look to the reviser's notes. Stainback v. Mo Hock Ke Lok Po, 336 U. S. 368, 336 U. S. 376, n. 12 (1949).
change in antitrust practice seems no more radical than the change in Federal Employers' Liability Act practice: Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44 (1941), cited in the reviser's note, was decided over six years before our initial decision in this case, 334 U. S. 573 (1948), which was the first ruling by this Court that forum non conveniens was inapplicable in antitrust suits.
Although no explanation is needed for the lack of Congressional reference to our former decision, simple chronology may be consulted. The reviser's notes appeared in House Report No. 308, 80th Congress, 1st Sess., which was published in April, 1947. The Code revision was initially passed by the House in July, 1947. [Footnote 3] With amendments, the revision was passed by the Senate on June 12, 1948, [Footnote 4] and by the House on June 16, 1948. [Footnote 5] Our decision in the first National City Lines case, 334 U. S. 334 U.S. 573, was handed down on June 7, 1948. Clearly, the failure of Congress expressly to consider this decision proves nothing.
Nor was there anything in our decision which required unique Congressional discussion, in the face of the unmistakable statutory language and reviser's notes. We expressly held that "Congress' mandate regarding venue and the exercise of jurisdiction is binding on the federal courts," 334 U.S. at 334 U. S. 588-589, and that decision in this field must rest on "the legislative purpose and the effect of the language used . . . ," supra, at 334 U. S. 597. Nothing in our previous opinion intimates that we could fail to respect whatever modification of the law Congress might enact.
took no action with respect to the forthcoming alteration of the rule that forum non conveniens was inapplicable to antitrust suits, or that a protest was made which Congress disregarded. Neither alternative would offer the slightest justification for overriding the unequivocal words of § 1404(a) and the legislative history which establishes that Congress indeed meant what it said.
Act of June 25, 1948, 62 Stat. 869, 992, § 38.
There has been apparently but one other reported case dealing with the instant issue. It is in accord with the holding below. United States v. E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Co., 83 F.Supp. 233 (1949).
See generally Note, Venue in Antitrust Cases; Applicability of the New Discretionary Transfer Provision, 58 Yale L.J. 482 (1949).
"Subsection (a) was drafted in accordance with the doctrine of forum non conveniens, permitting transfer to a more convenient forum, even though the venue is proper. As an example of the need of such a provision, see Baltimore & Ohio R. Co. v. Kepner, 314 U. S. 44 (1941), which was prosecuted under the Federal Employer's Liability Act in New York, although the accident occurred and the employee resided in Ohio. The new subsection requires the court to determine that the transfer is necessary for convenience of the parties and witnesses, and further, that it is in the interest of justice to do so."
Hearings before House Committee on the Judiciary on H.R. 1600 and H.R. 2055, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 8 (1947).
Statement of Special Assistant to the Attorney General Baynton, id., 33-34.
"With respect to the bill to codify title 28, the Department has been gathering memoranda from all its various divisions and from the United States attorneys with the hope of making a comprehensible report on that bill. We have that material."
"You will remember the discussions between members of the staff of the committee and of the Department last month at which the Department made some suggestions with reference to minor corrections of errors and omissions then in the draft of the bill being considered by your committee."
"I am advised that this conference agreed upon a number of corrections and changes, and that these corrections and changes have now been incorporated in the bill, with the one exception of the [Tax Court] portion. . . ."
See 93 Cong.Rec. 8385 (1947).
the two statutes involved in these cases, but in the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 4, 5; the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 688; the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U.S.C. § 782; Merchant Marine Act of 1936, 46 U.S.C. § 1128d; the Securities Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 77a, 77v; the Securities Exchange Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 78a, 78aa; the Public Utility Holding Company Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 79, 79y; The Investment Company Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 80a, 80a-43, and perhaps in other statutes too.

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