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[321 U.S. 414, 417] Mr. Leonard Poretsky, of Boston, Mass., for petitioners.
The questions for our decision are: (1) Whether the Emergency Price Control Act of January 30, 1942, 56 Stat. 23, 50 U.S.C.App.Supp. II, 901 et seq., 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, 901 et seq., as amended by the Inflation Control Act of October 2, 1942, 56 Stat. 765, 50 U.S.C.App.Supp. II, 961 et seq., 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, 961 et seq., involves an unconstitutional delegation to the Price Administrator of the legislative power of Congress to control prices; (2) whether 204(d) of the Act was intended to preclude consideration by a district court of the validity of a maximum price regulation promulgated by the Administrator, as a defense to a criminal prosecution for its violation; (3) whether the exclusive statutory procedure set up by 203 and 204 of the Act for administrative and judicial review of regulations, with the accompanying stay provisions, provide a sufficiently adequate means of determining the validity of a price regulation to meet the demands of due process; and (4) whether, in view of this available method of review, 204(d) of the Act, if construed to preclude consideration of the validity of the regulation as a defense to a prosecution for violating it, contravenes the Sixth Amendment, or works an unconstitutional legislative interference with the judicial power.
Petitioners in both of these cases were tried and convicted by the District Court for Massachusetts upon several counts of indictments charging violation of 4(a) and 205(b) of the Act by the willful sale of wholesale cuts of best at prices above the maximum prices prescribed by 1364.451-1364.455 of Revised Maximum Price Regulation No. 169, 7 Fed.Reg. 10381 et seq. Petitioners have not availed themselves of the procedure set up by 203 and 204 by which any person subject to a maximum price regulation may test its validity by protest to and hearing before the Administrator, whose determination may be [321 U.S. 414, 419] reviewed on complaint to the Emergency Court of Appeals and by this Court on certiorari, see Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U.S. 182 , 63 S.Ct. 1019. When the indictments were found the 60 days period allowed by the statute for filing protests had expired.
In the course of the trial the District Court overruled or denied offers of proof, motions and requests for rulings, raising various questions as to the validity of the Act and Regulation, including those presented by the petitions for certiorari. In particular petitioners offered evidence, which the District Court excluded as irrelevant, for the purpose of showing that the Regulation did not conform to the standards prescribed by the Act and that it deprived petitioners of property without the due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. They specifically raised the question reserved in Lockerty v. Phillips, supra, whether the validity of a regulation may be challenged in defense of a prosecution for its violation although it had not been tested by the prescribed administrative procedure and complaint to the Emergency Court of Appeals. The District Court convicted petitioners upon verdicts of guilty. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed, 137 F. 2d 850, and we granted certiorari, 320 U.S. 730 , 64 S.Ct. 190.
Revised Maximum Price Regulation No. 169 was issued December 10, 1942, under authority of the Emergency Price Control Act as amended and Executive Order No. 9250. The Regulation established specific maximum [321 U.S. 414, 422] prices for the sale at wholesale of specified cuts of beef and veal. As is required by 2(a) of the Act, it was accompanied by a 'statement of the considerations involved' in prescribing it. From the preamble to the Regulation and from the Statement of Considerations accompanying it, it appears that the prices fixed for sales at wholesale were slightly in excess of those prevailing between March 16 and March 28, 1942,2 and approximated those prevailing on September 15, 1942. Findings that the Regulation was necessary, that the prices which it fixed were fair and equitable, and that it otherwise conformed to the standards prescribed by the Act, appear in the Statement of Considerations.
That Congress has constitutional authority to prescribe commodity prices as a war emergency measure, and that the Act was adopted by Congress in the exercise of that power, are not questioned here, and need not now be considered save as they have a bearing on the procedural [321 U.S. 414, 423] features of the Act later to be considered which are challenged on constitutional grounds.
Congress enacted the Emergency Price Control Act in pursuance of a defined policy and required that the prices fixed by the Administrator should further that policy and conform to standards prescribed by the Act. The boundaries of the field of the Administrator's permissible action are marked by the statute. It directs that the prices fixed shall effectuate the declared policy of the Act to stabilize commodity prices so as to prevent war-time inflation and its enumerated disruptive causes and effects. In addition the prices established must be fair and equitable, and in fixing them the Administrator is directed to give due consideration, so far as practicable, to prevailing prices during the designated base period, with prescribed administrative adjustments to compensate for enumerated disturbing factors affecting prices. In short the purposes of the Act specified in 1 denote the objective to be sought by the Administrator in fixing prices-the prevention of inflation and its enumerated consequences. The standards set out in 2 define the boundaries within which prices having that purpose must be fixed. It is enough to satisfy the statutory requirements that the Administrator finds that the prices fixed will tend to achieve that objective and will conform to those standards, and that the courts in an appropriate proceeding can see that substantial basis for those findings is not wanting.
The Act is thus an exercise by Congress of its legislative power. In it Congress has stated the legislative objective, has prescribed the method of achieving that objective-maximum price fixing-and has laid down standards to guide the administrative determination of both the occasions for the exercise of the price-fixing power, and the particular prices to be established. Compare Field v. Clark, 143 U.S. 649 , 12 S.Ct. 495; Hampton Jr. & Co. v. United States, 276 [321 U.S. 414, 424] U.S. 394, 48 S.Ct. 348; Currin v. Wallace, 306 U.S. 1 , 59 S. Ct. 379; Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38 , 59 S.Ct. 648; United States v. Rock Royal Co-op., 307 U.S. 533 , 59 S.Ct. 993; Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, 310 U.S. 381 , 60 S. Ct. 907; Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U.S. 126, 657 , 61 S.Ct. 524; National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 190 , 63 S.Ct. 997; Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 , 63 S.Ct. 1375.
The Act is unlike the National Industrial Recovery Act of June 16, 1933, 48 Stat. 195, considered in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States, 295 U.S. 495 , 55 S.Ct. 837, 97 A.L.R. 947, which proclaimed in the broadest terms its purpose 'to rehabilitate industry and to conserve natural resources.' It prescribed no method of attaining that end save by the establishment of codes of fair competition, the nature of whose permissible provisions was left undefined. It provided no standards to which those codes were to conform. The function of formulating the codes was delegated, not to a public official responsible to Congress or the Executive, but to private individuals engaged in the industries to be regulated. Compare Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, supra, 310 U.S. at page 309, 60 S.Ct. at page 915.
The Constitution as a continuously operative charter of government does not demand the impossible or the impracticable. It does not require that Congress find for itself every fact upon which it desires to base legislative action or that it make for itself detailed determinations which it has declared to be prerequisite to the application of the legislative policy to particular facts and circumstances impossible for Congress itself properly to investigate. The essentials of the legislative function are the determination of the legislative policy and its formulation and promulgation as a defined and binding rule of conduct-here the rule, with penal sanctions, that prices shall not be greater than those fixed by maximum price regulations which conform to standards and will tend to further the policy which Congress has established. These essentials are preserved when Congress has specified the basic conditions of fact upon whose existence or occurrence, [321 U.S. 414, 425] ascertained from relevant data by a designated administrative agency, it directs that its statutory command shall be effective. It is no objection that the determination of facts and the inferences to be drawn from them in the light of the statutory standards and declaration of policy call for the exercise of judgment, and for the formulation of subsidiary administrative policy within the prescribed statutory framework. See Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, supra, 312 U.S. at pages 145, 146, 61 S.Ct. at pages 532, 533, and cases cited.
As we have said: 'The Constitution has never been regarded as denying to the Congress the necessary resources of flexibility and practicality ... to perform its function.' Currin v. Wallace, supra, 306 U.S. at page 15, 59 S.Ct. at page 387. Hence it is irrelevant that Congress might itself have prescribed the maximum prices or have provided a more rigid standard by which they are to be fixed; for example, that all prices should be frozen at the levels obtaining during a certain period or on a certain date. See Union Bridge Co. v. United States, 204 U.S. 364, 386 , 27 S.Ct. 367, 374. Congress is not confined [321 U.S. 414, 426] to that method of executing its policy which involves the least possible delegation of discretion to administrative officers. Compare McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 413 et seq.. It is free to avoid the rigidity of such a system, which might well result in serious hardship, and to choose instead the flexibility attainable by the use of less restrictive standards. Cf. Hampton v. United States, supra, 276 U.S. pages 408, 409, 48 S.Ct. at pages 351, 352. Only if we could say that there is an absence of standards for the guidance of the Administrator's action, so that it would be impossible in a proper proceeding to ascertain whether the will of Congress has been obeyed, would we be justified in overriding its choice of means for effecting its declared purpose of preventing inflation.
The standards prescribed by the present Act, with the aid of the 'statement of the considerations' required to be made by the Administrator, are sufficiently definite and precise to enable Congress, the courts and the public to ascertain whether the Administrator, in fixing the designated prices, has conformed to those standards. Compare Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States, supra, 320 U.S. at page 104, 63 S.Ct. at page 1387. Hence we are unable to find in them an unauthorized delegation of legislative power. The authority to fix prices only when prices have risen or threaten to rise to an extent or in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the Act to prevent inflation is no broader than the authority to fix maximum prices when deemed necessary to protect consumers against unreasonably high prices, sustained in Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, supra, or the authority to take possession of and operate telegraph lines whenever deemed necessary for the national security or defense, upheld in Dakota Cent. Tel. Co. v. State of South Dakota, 250 U.S. 163 , 39 S.Ct. 507, 4 A.L.R. 1623; or the authority to suspend tariff provisions upon findings that the duties imposed by a foreign state are 'reciprocally unequal and unreasonable', held valid in Field v. Clark, supra ( 143 U.S. 649 , 12 S.Ct. 504). [321 U.S. 414, 427] The directions that the prices fixed shall be fair and equitable, that in addition they shall tend to promote the purposes of the Act, and that in promulgating them consideration shall be given to prices prevailing in a stated base period, confer no greater reach for administrative determination than the power to fix just and reasonable rates, see Sunshine Anthracite Coal Co. v. Adkins, supra, and cases cited; or the power to approve consolidations in the 'public interest', sustained in New York Cent. Securities Corp. v. United States, 287 U.S. 12, 24 , 25 S., 53 S.Ct. 45, 48 (Compare United States v. Lowden, 308 U.S. 225 , 60 S.Ct. 248); or the power to regulate radio stations engaged in chain broadcasting 'as public interest, convenience or necessity requires', upheld in National Broadcasting Co. v. United States, supra, 319 U.S. at page 225, 63 S.Ct. at pages 1013, 1014; or the power to prohibit 'unfair methods of competition' not defined or forbidden by the common law, Federal Trade Commission v. R. F. Keppel & Bro., 291 U.S. 304 , 54 S.Ct. 423, 426; or the direction that in allotting marketing quotas among states and producers due consideration be given to a variety of economic factors, sustained in Mulford v. Smith, supra, 307 U.S. at pages 48, 49, 59 S.Ct. at page 652, 653; or the similar direction that in adjusting tariffs to meet differences in costs of production the President 'take into consideration' 'in so far as he finds it practicable' a variety of economic matters, sustained in Hampton Jr. & Co. v. United States, supra ( 276 U.S. 394 , 48 S.Ct. 349); or the similar authority, in making classifications within an industry, to consider various named and unnamed 'relevant factors' and determine the respective weights attributable to each, held valid in Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, supra.
Section 204(c) creates a court to be known as the Emergency Court of Appeals consisting of United States district or circuit judges designated by the Chief Justice of the United States. Section 204(a) authorizes any person aggrieved by the denial or partial denial of his protest to file a complaint with the Emergency Court of Appeals within thirty days after the denial, praying that the regulation, order or price schedule protested be enjoined or set aside in whole or in part. The court may issue such an injunction only if it finds that the regulation, order or price schedule 'is not in accordance with law, or is arbitrary or capricious.' Subsection ( b). It is denied power to issue a temporary restraining order or interlocutory decree. Subsection (c). The effectiveness of any permanent injunction it may issue is postponed for thirty days, and if review by this Court is sought upon writ of certiorari, as authorized by subsection ( d), its effectiveness is further [321 U.S. 414, 429] postponed until final disposition of the case by this Court by denial of certiorari or decision upon the merits. Subsection (b).
The considerations which led us to that conclusion with respect to the equity jurisdiction of the district court, lead to the like conclusion as to its power to consider the validity of a price regulation as a defense to a criminal prosecution for its violation. The provisions of 204(d), con- [321 U.S. 414, 430] ferring upon the Emergency Court of Appeals and this Court 'exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of any regulation or order', coupled with the provision that 'no court, Federal, State, or Territorial, shall have jurisdiction or power to consider the validity of any such regulation', are broad enough in terms to deprive the district court of power to consider the validity of the Administrator's regulation or order as a defense to a criminal prosecution for its violation.
That such was the intention of Congress appears from the report of the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency, recommending the adoption of the bill which contained the provisions of 204(d). After pointing out that the bill provided for exclusive jurisdiction of the Emergency Court and the Supreme Court to determine the validity of regulations or orders issued under section 2, the Committee said: 'The courts in which criminal or civil enforcement proceedings are brought have jurisdiction, concurrently with the Emergency Court, to determine the constitutional validity of the statute itself.' Sen.Rep. 931, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 25. That the Committee, in making this statement, intended to distinguish between the validity of the statute and that of a regulation, and to permit consideration only of the former in defense to a criminal prosecution, is further borne out by the fact that the bill as introduced in the House had provided that the Emergency Court of Appeals should have exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of the provisions of the Act authorizing price regulations, as well as of the regulations themselves. H.R. 5479, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., printed in Hearings before Committee on Banking and Currency, House of Representatives, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., on H.R. 5479, pp. 4, 7, 8.
Congress, in thus authorizing consideration by the district court of the validity of the Act alone, gave clear indication that the validity of the Administrator's regula- [321 U.S. 414, 431] tions or orders should not be subject to attack in criminal prosecutions for their violation, at least before their invalidity had been adjudicated by recourse to the protest procedure prescribed by the statute. Such we conclude is the correct construction of the Act.
We come to the question whether the provisions of the Act, so construed as to deprive petitioners of opportunity to attack the Regulation in a prosecution for its violation, deprive them of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. At the trial, petitioners offered to prove that the Regulation would compel them to sell beef at such prices as would render it impossible for wholesalers such as they are, no matter how efficient, to conduct their business other than at a loss. Section 4(d) declares that 'Nothing in this Act shall be construed to require any person to sell any commodity ....' Petitioners were therefore not required by the Act, nor so far as appears by any other rule of law, to continue selling meat at wholesale if they could not do so without loss. But they argue that to impose on them the choice either of refraining from sales of beef at wholesale or of running the risk of numerous criminal prosecutions and suits for treble damages authorized by Sec. 205(e), without the benefit of any temporary injunction or stay pending determination by the prescribed statutory procedure of the Regulation's validity, is so harsh in its application to them as to deny them due process of law. In addition they urge the inadequacy of the administrative procedure and particularly of the sixty days period afforded by the Act within which to prepare and lodge a protest with the Administrator.
In considering these asserted hardships, it is appropriate to take into account the purposes of the Act and the circumstances attending its enactment and application as a war-time emergency measure. The Act was adopted Jan- [321 U.S. 414, 432] uary 30, 1942, shortly after our declaration of war against Germany and Japan, when it was common knowledge, as is emphasized by the legislative history of the Act that there was grave danger of war-time inflation and the disorganization of our economy from excessive price rises. Congress was under pressing necessity of meeting this danger by a practicable and expeditious means which would operate with such promptness, regularity and consistency as would minimize the sudden development of commodity price disparities, accentuated by commodity shortages occasioned by the war.
Congress, in enacting the Emergency Price Control Act, was familiar with the consistent history of delay in utility rate cases. It had in mind the dangers to price control as a preventive of inflation if the validity and effectiveness of prescribed maximum prices were to be subject to the exigencies and delays of litigation originating in eighty-five district courts and continued by separate appeals through eleven separate courts of appeals to this Court, to say nothing of litigation conducted in state courts. See Sen. Rep. No. 931, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., pp. 23-5. [321 U.S. 414, 433] Congress sought to avoid or minimize these difficulties by the establishment of a single procedure for review of the Administrator's regulations, beginning with an appeal to the Administrator's specialized knowledge and experience gained in the administration of the Act, and affording to him an opportunity to modify the regulations and orders complained of before resort to judicial determination of their validity. The organization of such an exclusive procedure especially adapted to the exigencies and requirements of a nation-wide scheme of price regulation is, as we have seen, within the constitutional power of Congress to create inferior federal courts and prescribe their jurisdiction. The considerations which led to its creation are similar to, and certainly no weaker than, those which led this Court in Texas & P.R. v. Abilene Cotton Oil Co., 204 U.S. 426 , 27 S.Ct. 350, 9 Ann.Cas. 1075, and the long line of cases following it, to require resort to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the special statutory method provided for review of its decisions in certain types of cases involving railway rates. As with the present statute, it was thought desirable to preface all judicial action by resort to expert administrative knowledge and experience, and thus minimize the confusion that would result from inconsistent decisions of district and circuit courts rendered without the aid of an administrative interpretation. In addition the present Act seeks further to avoid that confusion by restricting judicial review of the administrative determination to a single court. Such a procedure, so long as it affords to those affected a reasonable opportunity to be heard and present evidence, does not offend against due process. Bradley v. City of Richmond, 227 U.S. 477 , 33 S.Ct. 318; First Nat. Bank v. Board of Com'rs Weld County, 264 U.S. 450 , 44 S.Ct. 385; Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 337 , 57 S.Ct. 816.
Petitioners assert that they have been denied that opportunity because the sixty days period allowed for filing a protest is insufficient for that purpose; because the pro- [321 U.S. 414, 434] cedure before the Administrator is inadequate to ensure due process; because the statute precludes any interlocutory injunction staying enforcement of a price regulation before final adjudication of its validity; because the trial of the issue of validity of a regulation is excluded from the criminal trial for its violation; and because in any case there is nothing in the statute to prevent their conviction for violation of a regulation before they could secure a ruling on its validity. A sufficient answer to all these contentions is that petitioners have failed to seek the administrative remedy and the statutory review which were open to them and that they have not shown that had they done so any of the consequences which they apprehend would have ensued to any extent whatever, or if they should, that the statute withholds judicial remedies adequate to protect petitioners' rights.
For the purposes of this case, in passing upon the sufficiency of the procedure on protest to the Administrator and complaint to the Emergency Court, it is irrelevant to suggest that the Administrator or the Court has in the past or may in the future deny due process. Action taken by them is reviewable in this Court and if contrary to due process will be corrected here. Hence we have no occasion to pass upon determinations of the Administrator or the Emergency Court, said to violate due process, which have never been brought here for review, and obviously, we cannot pass upon action which might have been taken on a protest by petitioners, who have never made a protest or in any way sought the remedy Congress has provided. In the absence of any proceeding before the Administrator we cannot assume that he would fail in the performance of any duty imposed on him by the Constitution and laws of the United States, or that he would deny due process to petitioners by 'loading the record against them' or denying such hearing as the Constitution prescribes. Plymouth Coal Co. v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 232 U.S. 531, 545 , 34 S.Ct. 359, 363; Hall [321 U.S. 414, 435] v. Geiger-Jones Co., 242 U.S. 539, 554 , 37 S.Ct. 217, 222, L. R.A. 1917F, 514, Ann.Cas.1917C, 643; State of Minnesota v. Probate Court, 309 U.S. 270, 277 , 60 S.Ct. 523, 527, 126 A.L.R. 530, and cases cited. Only if we could say in advance of resort to the statutory procedure that it is incapable of affording due process to petitioners could we conclude that they have shown any legal excuse for their failure to resort to it or that their constitutional rights have been or will be infringed. Natural Gas Co. v. Slattery, 302 U.S. 300, 309 , 58 S.Ct. 199, 203; Anniston Mfg. Co. v. Davis, supra, 301 U.S. at pages 356, 357, 57 S.Ct. at page 825; State of Minnesota v. Probate Court, supra, 309 U.S. at pages 275, 277, 60 S.Ct. at pages 526, 527, 126 A.L.R. 530. But upon a full examination of the provisions of the statute it is evident that the authorized procedure is not incapable of affording the protection to petitioners' rights required by due process.
The regulations, which are given the force of law, are published in the Federal Register, and constructive notice of their contents is thus given all persons affected by them. 44 U.S.C. 307, 44 U.S.C.A. 307. The penal provisions of the statute are applicable only to violations of a regulation which are willful. Petitioners have not contended that they were unaware of the Regulation and the jury found that they knowingly violated it within eight days after its issue.
The sixty days period allowed for protest of the Administrator's regulations cannot be said to be unreasonably short in view of the urgency and exigencies of wartime price regulation. 3 Here the Administrator is required to act initially upon the protest within thirty days after it is filed or ninety days after promulgation of the challenged regulation, by allowing the protest wholly or in part, or denying it or setting it down for hearing. (Section 203(a). [321 U.S. 414, 436] But we cannot say that the Administrator would not have allowed ample time for the presentation of evidence. 4 And under 204(a) petitioners could have applied to the Emergency Court of Appeals for leave to introduce any additional evidence 'which could not reasonably' have been offered to the Administrator or included in the proceedings before him, and could have applied to the Administrator to modify or change his decision in the light of that evidence.
Nor can we say that the administrative hearing provided by the statute will prove inadequate. We hold in Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503 , 64 S.Ct. 641, that in the circumstances to which this Act was intended to apply, the failure to afford a hearing prior to the issue of a price regulation does not offend against due process. While the hearing on a protest may be restricted to the presentation of documentary evidence, affidavits and briefs, the Act contemplates, and the Administrator's regulations provide for, a full oral hearing upon a showing that written evidence and briefs 'will not permit the fair and expeditious disposition of the protest'. 203(a); Revised Procedural Regulation No. 1, 1300.39, 7 Fed.Reg. 8961. In advance of application to the Administrator for such a hearing we cannot well say whether its denial in any particular case would be a denial of due process. The Act requires the Administrator to inform the protestant of the grounds for his decision denying a protest, including all matters of which he has taken official notice. 203(a). In view of the provisions for the introduction of further evidence both before and after the Administrator has announced his determination, we cannot say that if petitioners had filed a protest ade- [321 U.S. 414, 437] quate opportunity would not have been afforded them to meet any arguments and evidence put forward by the Administrator, or that if such opportunity had been denied the denial would not have been corrected by the Emergency Court.
In the circumstances of this case we find no denial of due process in the statutory prohibition of a temporary stay or injunction. The present statute is not open to the objection that petitioners are compelled to serve the public as in the case of a public utility, or that the only method by which they can test the validity of the regula- [321 U.S. 414, 438] tions promulgated under it is by violating the statute and thus subjecting themselves to the possible imposition of severe and cumulative penalties. See Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 , 28 S.Ct. 441, 13 L.R.A.,N. S., 932, 14 Ann.Cas. 764; Wilcox v. Consolidated Gas Co., 212 U.S. 19, 53 , 54 S., 29 S.Ct. 192, 200, 48 L.R.A.,N.S., 1134, 15 Ann.Cas. 1034; Missouri Pac. R. Co. v. Tucker, 230 U.S. 340 , 33 S.Ct. 961; Oklahoma Operating Co. v. Love, 252 U.S. 331 , 40 S.Ct. 338. For as we have seen, 4(d) specifically provides that no one shall be compelled to sell any commodity, and the statute itself provides an expeditious means of testing the validity of any price regulation, without necessarily incurring any of the penalties of the Act. Compare Wadley Southern R. Co. v. State of Georgia, 235 U.S. 651 , 667-669, 35 S.Ct. 214, 220, 221.
Under these sections the Administrator may not only alter or set aside the regulation, but he has wide scope for the exercise of his discretionary power to modify or suspend a regulation pending its administrative and judicial review. Hence we cannot assume that petitioners, had they applied to the Administrator, would not have secured all the relief to which they were entitled. The denial of a right to a restraining order or interlocutory injunction to one who has failed to apply for available administrative relief, not shown to be inadequate, is not a denial of due process. Natural Gas Co. v. Slattery, supra, 302 U.S. at page 310, 58 S.Ct. at page 204.
In any event, we are unable to say that the denial of interlocutory relief pending a judicial determination of the validity of the regulation would in the special circumstances of this case, involve a denial of constitutional right. If the alternatives, as Congress could have concluded, were war-time inflation or the imposition on individuals of the burden of complying with a price regulation while its validity is being determined, Congress could constitutionally make the choice in favor of the protection of the public interest from the dangers of inflation. Compare [321 U.S. 414, 440] Miller v. Schoene, 276 U.S. 272 , 48 S.Ct. 246, in which we held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not preclude a state from compelling the uncompensated destruction of private property in order to preserve important public interests from destruction.
The award of an interlocutory injunction by courts of equity has never been regarded as strictly a matter of right, even though irreparable injury may otherwise result to the plaintiff. Compare Scripps-Howard Radio, Inc., v. Federal Communications Comm., 316 U.S. 4, 10 , 62 S.Ct. 875, 880, and cases cited. Even in suits in which only private interests are involved the award is a matter of sound judicial discretion, in the exercise of which the court balances the conveniences of the parties and possible injuries to them according as they may be affected by the granting or withholding of the injunction. Meccano, Ltd., v. John Wanamaker, 253 U.S. 136, 141 , 40 S.Ct. 463, 465; Rice & Adams Corp. v. Lathrop, 278 U.S. 509, 514 , 49 S.Ct. 220, 222. And it will avoid such inconvenience and injury so far as may be, by attaching conditions to the award, such as the requirement of an injunction bond conditioned upon payment of any damage caused by the injunction if the plaintiff's contentions are not sustained. Prendergast v. New York Tel. Co., 262 U.S. 43, 51 , 43 S.Ct. 466, 469; Ohio Oil Co. v. Conway, 279 U.S. 813, 815 , 49 S.Ct. 256, 257.
Our decisions leave no doubt that when justified by compelling public interest the legislature may authorize summary action subject to later judicial review of its validity. It may insist on the immediate collection of taxes. Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589 , 595-597, 51 S.Ct. 608, 611, and cases cited. It may take possession of property presumptively abandoned by its owner, prior to determination of [321 U.S. 414, 443] its actual abandonment, Anderson Nat. Bank v. Luckett, 321 U.S. 233 , 64 S. Ct. 599. For the protection of public health it may order the summary destruction of property without prior notice or hearing. North American Cold Storage Co. v. City of Chicago, 211 U.S. 306 , 29 S.Ct. 101, 15 Ann.Cas. 276; Adams v. City of Milwaukee, 228 U.S. 572, 584 , 33 S. Ct. 610, 613. It may summarily requisition property immediately needed for the prosecution of the war. Compare United States v. Pfitsch, 256 U.S. 547 , 41 S.Ct. 569. As a measure of public protection the property of alien enemies may be seized, and property believed to be owned by enemies taken without prior determination of its true ownership. Central Union Trust Co. v. Garvan, 254 U.S. 554, 556 , 41 S. Ct. 214; Stoehr v. Wallace, 255 U.S. 239, 245 , 41 S.Ct. 293, 296. Similarly public necessity in time of war may justify allowing tenants to remain in possession against the will of the landlord, Block v. Hirsh, 256 U.S. 135 , 41 S.Ct. 458, 16 A.L.R. 165; Marcus Brown Holding Co. v. Feldman, 256 U.S. 170 , 41 S.Ct. 465. Even the personal liberty of the citizen may be temporarily restrained as a measure of public safety. Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States, supra; cf. Jacobson v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 , 25 S.Ct. 358, 3 Ann.Cas. 765. Measured by these standards we find no denial of due process under the circumstances in which this Act was adopted and must be applied, in its denial of any judicial stay pending determination of a regulation's validity.
As we have seen Congress, through its power to define the jurisdiction of inferior federal courts and to create such courts for the exercise of the judicial power, could, subject to other constitutional limitations, create the Emergency Court of Appeals, give to it exclusive equity jurisdiction to determine the validity of price regulations prescribed by the Administrator, and foreclose any further or other consideration of the validity of a regulation as a defense to a prosecution for its violation. [321 U.S. 414, 444] Unlike most penal statutes and regulations whose validity can be determined only by running the risk of violation, see Douglas v. City of Jeanette, 319 U.S. 157, 163 , 63 S.Ct. 877, 881, 882, the present statute provides a mode of testing the validity of a regulation by an independent administrative proceeding. There is no constitutional requirement that that test be made in one tribunal rather than in another, so long as there is an opportunity to be heard and for judicial review which satisfies the demands of due process, as is the case here. This was recognized in Bradley v. City of Richmond, supra, and in Wadley Southern R. Co. v. State of Georgia, supra, 235 U.S. at pages 667, 669, 35 S.Ct. at pages 220, 221, and has never been doubted by this Court. And we are pointed to no principle of law or provision of the Constitution which precludes Congress from making criminal the violation of an administrative regulation, by one who has failed to avail himself of an adequate separate procedure for the adjudication of its validity, or which precludes the practice, in many ways desirable, of splitting the trial for violations of an administrative regulation by committing the determination of the issue of its validity to the agency which created it, and the issue of violation to a court which is given jurisdiction to punish violations. Such a requirement presents no novel constitutional issue.
No procedural principle is more familiar to this Court than that a constitutional right may be forfeited in criminal as well as civil cases by the failure to make timely assertion of the right before a tribunal having jurisdiction to determine it. O'Neil v. State of Vermont, 144 U.S. 323, 331 , 12 S.Ct. 693, 696; Barbour v. State of Georgia, 249 U.S. 454, 460 , 39 S.Ct. 316, 317; Whitney v. People of State of California, 274 U.S. 357, 360 , 362 S., 380, 47 S.Ct. 641, 642, 643, 650. Courts may for that reason refuse to consider a constitutional objection even though a like objection had previously been sustained in a case in which it was properly taken. Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Watson, 287 U.S. 86 , 53 S.Ct. 32, 86 A.L.R. 174. While this Court in its [321 U.S. 414, 445] discretion sometimes departs from this rule in cases from lower federal courts, it invariably adheres to it in cases from state courts, see Brandeis J. concurring in Whitney v. People of State of California, supra, 274 U.S. at page 380, 47 S.Ct. at page 650, and it could hardly be maintained that it is beyond legislative power to make the rule inflexible in all cases. Compare Woolsey v. Best, 299 U.S. 1 , 57 S.Ct. 2, with Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371 .
The analogy of such a procedure to the present, by which violation of a price regulation is made penal, unless the offender has established its unlawfulness by an independent statutory proceeding, is complete and obvious. As we have pointed out such a requirement is objectionable only if by statutory command or in operation it will deny, to those charged with violations, an adequate opportunity to be heard on the question of validity. And, as we have seen, petitioners fail to show that such is the necessary effect of the present statute, or that if so applied as to deprive them of an adequate opportunity to establish the invalidity of a regulation there would not be adequate means of securing appropriate judicial relief in the course either of the statutory proceeding or of the criminal trial. During the present term of court we have held that one charged with criminal violations of an order of his draft board may not challenge the validity of the order if he has failed to pursue to completion the exclusive administrative remedies provided by the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940. Falbo v. United States, 320 U.S. 549 , 64 S.Ct. 346; and see Bowles v. United States, 319 U.S. 33 , 63 S.Ct. 912. We perceive no tenable ground for distinguishing that case from this.
We have no occasion to decide whether one charged with criminal violation of a duly promulgated price regulation [321 U.S. 414, 447] may defend on the ground that the regulation is unconstitutional on its face. Nor do we consider whether one who is forced to trial and convicted of violation of a regulation, while diligently seeking determination of its validity by the statutory procedure may thus be deprived of the defense that the regulation is invalid. There is no contention that the present regulation is void on its face, petitioners have taken no step to challenge its validity by the procedure which was open to them and it does not appear that they have been deprived of the opportunity to do so. Even though the statute should be deemed to require it, any ruling at the criminal trial which would preclude the accused from showing that he had had no opportunity to establish the invalidity of the regulation by resort to the statutory procedure, would be reviewable on appeal on constitutional grounds. It will be time enough to decide questions not involved in this case when they are brought to us for decision, as they may be, whether they arise in the Emergency Court of Appeals or in the district court upon a criminal trial.
In the exercise of the equity jurisdiction of the Emergency Court of Appeals to test the validity of a price regulation, a jury trial is not mandatory under the Seventh Amendment. Cf. Block v. Hirsh, supra, 256 U.S. at page 158, 41 S.Ct. at page 460, 16 A.L.R. 165. Nor has there been any denial in the present criminal proceeding of the right, guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment, to a trial by a jury of the state and district where the crime was committed. Subject to the requirements of due process, which are here satisfied, Congress could make criminal the violation of a price regulation. The indictment charged a violation of the regulation in the district of trial, and the question whether petitioners had committed the crime thus charged in the indictment and defined by Congress, namely, whether they had violated the statute by willful disobedience of a price regulation promulgated by the [321 U.S. 414, 448] Administrator, was properly submitted to the jury. Cf. Falbo v. United States, supra.
Any regulation may provide for adjustments and reasonable exceptions which, in the Administrator's judg- [321 U.S. 414, 449] ment, are necessary and proper to effectuate the purposes of the Act. If, in his judgment, such action is necessary or proper to effectuate the purposes of the Act, he may, by regulation or order, regulate or prohibit speculative or manipulative practices or hoarding in connection with any commodity (50 U.S.C.A.Appendix 902, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix 902).
In order to exercise his power anent this purpose the Administrator will have to form a judgment as to what stabilization means, and what are speculative, unwarranted and abnormal increases in price. It hardly need be said that men may differ radically as to the connotation of these terms and that it would be very difficult to convict [321 U.S. 414, 450] anyone of error of judgment in so classifying a given economic phenomenon.
It is not clear-to me at least-what is the limit of this purpose. I can conceive that an honest Administrator might, without laying himself open to the charge of exceeding his powers, make any kind of order or regulation based upon the view that otherwise defense appropriations by Congress might be dissipated by what he considers excessive prices. How his exercise of judgment in connection with this purpose could be thought excessive it is impossible for me to say.
Reflection will demonstrate that in fact the Act sets no limits upon the discretion or judgment of the Administrator. His commission is to take any action with respect to prices which he believes will preserve what he deems a sound economy during the emergency and prevent what he considers to be a disruption of such a sound economy [321 U.S. 414, 452] in the post war period. His judgment, founded as it may be, on his studies and investigations, as well as other economic data, even though contrary to the great weight of current opinion or authority, is the final touchstone of the validity of his action.
I have not yet spoken of the statutory provisions respecting the permissible procedure of the Administrator in imposing prices. Sec. 202(a), 50 U.S.C.Appendix, 922(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 922(a) authorizes him to make such studies and investigations and to obtain such information as he deems necessary or proper to assist him in prescribing any regulation or order, or in the administration and enforcement of the Act and regulations, orders, and price schedules thereunder. The remaining subsections give him broad powers to compel disclosure of information. And he may take official notice of economic data and other facts, including facts found as a result of his investigations and studies ( 203(b), 50 U. S.C.Appendix, 923(b), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 923(b).
Each regulation or order must be accompanied by a 'statement of the considerations involved' in its issue ( 2(a), 50 U.S.C.Appendix, 902(a) 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 902(a). This is not a statement or finding of fact. Webster defines a term 'consideration' as 'that which is, or should be, considered as a ground of opinion or action; motive; reason.' The citizen, [321 U.S. 414, 453] therefore, is merely to be advised of the reasons for the Administrator's action.
How is he to proceed if he desires to challenge that action? The answer is found in 203, 50 U.S.C.Appendix, 923, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 923. Within a specified time after the issue of a regulation any person subject to any provision of it may file a protest 'specifically setting forth objections to any such provision and affidavits or other written evidence in support of such objections.' The Administrator may receive statements in support of the regulations and incorporate them in his proceedings. Within a time fixed he must (1) grant or deny the protest in whole or in part, (2) note it for hearing, or (3) provide an opportunity to present further evidence. His is the choice.
And it is to be observed that, after seeing the protestant's affidavits and the evidence, the Administrator may load the record with all sorts of material, articles, opinions, [321 U.S. 414, 454] compilations, and what not-pure hearsay-subject to no cross-examination, to persuade the court that his order could, 'in his judgment', promote one of the 'purposes' of the Act.
Chatlos v. Brown, Em.App., 136 F.2d 490, Spaeth v. Brown, Em.App., 137 F.2d 669, and Bibb Manufacturing Co. v. Bowles, Em.App., 140 F.2d 459, amongst other cases, indicate the sort of data-although they do not exclude the use of other sorts-on which the Administrator seems to be accustomed, and to be entitled, to act. He need make no findings of fact.
The protestant who is aggrieved by the denial or partial denial of his protest may, within a set time, file a complaint with a specially created Emergency Court of Appeals 'specifying his objections and praying that the regulation, order, or price schedule protested be enjoined or set aside in whole or in part.' The court is given exclusive jurisdiction and all other courts are forbidden to take jurisdiction to grant such relief. The court may set aside the order, dismiss the complaint, or remand the proceeding. Upon the filing and service of the complaint, the Administrator is to certify and file a transcript of such portion of the proceedings before him as are material to the complaint ( 204(a), 50 U.S. C.Appendix, 924(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 924(a).
'This overlooks the fact that the Administrator, from the necessities of the case, does not come with a virgin mind to the consideration of a protest. He has previously performed the official act of issuing the regulation, the terms of which of course reflect his conclusions on many economic, administrative and legal questions. In this sense, he necessarily approaches consideration of a protest with certain 'preconceived notions'-to use complainant's phrase. It is the object of the protest procedure to give the Administrator a chance to reconsider any challenged provisions in the regulation in the light of further evidence or arguments which may be advanced by the protestant. What the Administrator did here was to lay his cards on the table in the protest proceedings, offering protestant an opportunity to play its trump cards, if it had any.
No court is competent, on a mass of economic opinion consisting of studies by subordinates of the Administrator, [321 U.S. 414, 459] charts and graphs prepared in support of the studies, and economic essays gathered hither and yon, to demonstrate, beyond doubt, that the considerations or conclusions of the Administrator from such material cannot support the Administrator's judgment that what he has done by way of regulation or price schedule tends to prevent post war collapse of values, or to prevent dissipation of defense appropriations through excessive prices, or to prevent impairment of the standard of living of persons dependent on life insurance, or to prevent hardship to schools-to enumerate but a few of the stated purposes of the Act.
It is not surprising that, in the thirty-one cases decided by the Emergency Court of Appeals of which I have found reports, complaints have been dismissed in twenty-eight, and but three have been remanded to the Administrator for further proceedings. 3 Two of the three involved no question of merits under the statutory provisions.
The Emergency Court of Appeals in Taylor v. Brown, 137 F.2d 654, overruled a challenge to the constitutional validity of the Act's delegation of legislative power to the Administrator by invocation of the 'War Power' of Congress, the powers embodied in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution 'to declare War', 'to raise and support Armies', 'to provide and maintain a Navy,' and 'to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution' those powers. After showing, what needs no argument, that these powers of Congress are very different from those to be exercised in peace, the court then-without a sign that it realizes the great gap in the process-assumes that one of Congress' war powers is the power to transfer its legislative function to a delegate. By the [321 U.S. 414, 460] same reasoning it could close this court or take away the constitutional prerogatives of the President as 'War measures'.
I am not sure how far this court's present opinion adopts the same view. There are references in it to the war emergency, and yet the reasoning and the authorities cited seem to indicate that the delegation would be good in peace time and in respect of peace time administration. And the Emergency Court of Appeals, in spite of its decision in Taylor v. Brown, supra, and its statement in Philadelphia Coke Co. v. Bowles, 139 F. 2d 349, that, as the Act is an exercise of the war power and therefore does not deprive citizens of property without due process, has, nevertheless, weighed provisions of the Act as against the guaranty of the Fifth Amendment in Wilson v. Brown, 137 F.2d 348, and in Avant v. Bowles, 139 F.2d 702.
I agree with the Court's conclusions upon the substantive issues. But I am unable to believe that the trial af- [321 U.S. 414, 461] forded the petitioners conformed to constitutional requirements. The matter is of such importance as requires a statement of the reasons for dissent.
The Emergency Price Control legislation is unusual, if not unique. It is streamlined law in both substance and procedure. More than any other legislation except perhaps the Selective Service Act, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix , 301 et seq., in the combined effect of its provisions it attenuates the rights of affected individuals. The Congress regarded this as necessary, though it sought to preserve as much of individual right as it felt was consistent with controlling wartime inflation. To that judgment we owe all deference, saving only what we owe to the Constitution.
My difficulty arises from the Act's procedural provisions. They too are unusual. That is true, though each save one has been used before, and sustained, in separate applications. No previous legislation has presented quite this combination of procedural devices. 6 In the combination, if in nothing more, unique quality would be found. But there is more.
Disparity in remedial and penal measures does not necessarily invalidate the procedure, though it has relevance to adequacy of the remedy allowed the individual. 9 Congress has broad discretion to open and close the doors to litigation. In doing so it may take account of the necessities presented by such a situation as it was dealing with here. To follow the usual course of legislation and permit challenge by restraining orders, injunctions, stay orders and the normal processes of litigation would have been, in this case, to lock the barn door after the horse had been stolen. There was therefore compelling reason for Congress to balance the scales of litigation unevenly, if only it did not go too far. In no other way could it protect the paramount national interest. If the result, within the permissible limits, is harsh or inconvenient for [321 U.S. 414, 465] the individual, that is but part of the price he, with all others, must pay for living in a nation which ordinarily gives him so much of protection but in a world which has not been organized to give it security against events so disruptive of democratic procedures.
I have no difficulty with the provision which confers jurisdiction upon the Emergency Court of Appeals to determine the validity of price regulations or, if that had been all, with the mandate which makes its jurisdiction in that respect exclusive. Equally clear is the power of Congress to deprive the other federal courts of jurisdiction to issue stay orders, restraining orders, injunctions or other relief to prevent the operation of price regulations or to set them aside. So much may be rested on Congress' plenary authority to define and control the jurisdiction of the federal courts. Constitution, Article III, Section 2; Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U.S. 182 , 63 S.Ct. 1019. It may be taken too, for the purposes of this case, that Congress' power to channel enforcement of federal authority through the federal courts sustains the like prohibitions it has placed on the state courts. 10 Without more, the statute's provisions would seem to be unquestionably within the Congressional power. Cf. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41 , 58 S.Ct. 459.
Congress however was not content to create a single national tribunal, give it exclusive jurisdiction to determine all cases arising under the statute, and deny jurisdiction over them to all other courts. 11 It provided for en- [321 U.S. 414, 466] forcement by civil and criminal proceedings in the federal district courts and in the state courts throughout the country.
This, too, it could do, though only if adequate proceedings, in the constitutional sense, were authorized. And I agree that the enforcing jurisdiction would not be made inadequate merely by the fact that no stay order or other relief could be had pending the outcome of litigation. Confronted as the nation was with the imminent danger of inflation and therefore the necessity that price controls should become effective at once and continue so without interruption at least until invalidated in particular instances, Congress could require individuals to sustain, in deference to the paramount public interest, whatever harm might ensue during the period of litigation and until each had demonstrated the invalidity of the regulation as it affected himself. 12 Runaway inflation could not have been avoided in any other way. The lid had to go on, go on tight and stay tight. This necessity united with the general presumption of validity which attaches to legislation13 and Congress' power to control the jurisdiction of the courts to sustain its denial of power to all courts, including the enforcing courts, the Emergency Court and this one, 14 to suspend operation of the regulations pending final determination of validity. [321 U.S. 414, 467] The crux of this case comes, as I see it, in the question whether Congress can confer jurisdiction upon federal and state courts in the enforcement proceedings, more particularly the criminal suit, and at the same time deny them 'jurisdiction or power to consider the validity' of the regulations for which enforcement is thus sought. This question which the Court now says 'presents no novel constitutional issue' was expressly and carefully reserved in Lockerty v. Phillips, supra. The prohibition is the statute's most novel feature. In combination with others it gives the procedure a culminating summary touch and presents questions different from those arising from the other features.
The prohibition is unqualified. It makes no distinction between regulations invalid on constitutional grounds and others merely departing in some respect from statutory limitations, which Congress might waive, or by the criterion whether invalidity appears on the face of the regulation or only by proof of facts. If the purpose and effect are to forbid the enforcing court to consider all questions of validity and thus to require it to enforce regulations which are or may be invalid for constitutional reasons, doubt arises in two respects. First, broad as is Congress' power to confer or withhold jurisdiction, there has been none heretofore to confer it and at the same time deprive the parties affected of opportunity to call in question in a criminal trial whether the law, be it statute or [321 U.S. 414, 468] regulation,15 upon which the jurisdiction is exercised squares with the fundamental law. Nor has it been held that Congress can forbid a court invested with the judicial power under Article III to consider this question, when called upon to give effect to a statutory or other mandate.
The illustration is extreme and improbable of occurrence. But it serves to test the broad contention. Such a doctrine established as generally applicable would contain seeds of influence too dangerous for acceptance, more especially for the determination of criminal matters. No authority compels or enjoins this. And I am unwilling to give the idea adherence in particular applications without stating qualification which confines its possible effects [321 U.S. 414, 471] to situations where the gravest dangers to the nation's interest exist and cannot be escaped in any other way.
But such instances of foreclosure, whether legislative or judicial in origin, do not support the broader basis of argument in this case. Two things are to be emphasized. One is that the previous opportunity is in an earlier phase of the same proceeding, not as here a separate and independent one of wholly different character. In other words, the determination of guilt or other matter ultimately in issue is not cut up into two separate, distinct and independent proceedings in different tribunals, in which neither body has power to consider and decide all the issues, but each can determine them only in part. The other thing for stress is that the foreclosure by failure to take the earlier chance is not universally effective. And this is true particularly of constitutional questions, some of which may be raised at any time. 23 While Congress has plenary power to confer [321 U.S. 414, 473] or withhold appellate jurisdiction, cf. Ex parte McCardle, 7 Wall. 506, it has not so far been held, and it does not follow, that Congress can confer it, yet deny the appellate court 'power to consider' constitutional questions relating to the law in issue.
Whatever may be the limitations on judicial review in criminal proceedings under other administrative enforcement patterns,28 no one of these arrangements goes as far as the combination presented by this Act. It restricts the individual's right to review to the protest procedure and appeal through the Emergency Court of Appeals. Both are short-cut proceedings, trimmed almost to the bone of due process, even for wholly civil purposes, and pared down further by a short statute of limitations. Protest must be filed within the sixty-day period. After that time, no protest can be made and no review can be [321 U.S. 414, 475] had, except upon grounds arising later. Section 203(a).29 The only right is to submit written evidence and argument to the administrator. Section 203(c). There is none to present additional evidence to the court. 30 Necessarily there is none of cross-examination. No court can suspend the order unless or until a judgment of the Emergency Court invalidating it becomes final. 31 The penalties, civil and criminal, attach at once on violation and, it would seem, until the contrary is decided, with finality. 32 At any rate [321 U.S. 414, 476] that is the statute's purport. In short, the statute as drawn makes not only the regulation but also the penalties immediately and fully effective without regard to whether protest is made, the protest proceeding is carried to conclusion, or what the conclusion may be, except, and this is by inference, that violation after the order finally is held invalid may not be punishable.
This is the scope and reach of the statute. It is greater than any this Court heretofore has sustained. 33 It places [321 U.S. 414, 477] the affected individual just where the Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Lamar in Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, 235 U.S. 651, 662 , 35 S.Ct. 214, 218, said he could not be put: 'He must ... obey what may finally be held to be a void order, or disobey what may ultimately be held to be a lawful order.' Yet the Court holds this special proceeding 'adequate' and therefore effective to foreclose all opportunity for defense in a criminal prosecution on the ground the regulation is void.
This is no answer. A procedure so summary, imposing such risks, does not meet the requirements heretofore considered essential to the determination or foreclosure of issues material to guilt in criminal causes. It makes no difference that petitioners did not follow the special procedure. The very question, posed in the Court's own terms, is whether, if they had followed it, the remedy would be adequate constitutionally. It cannot be, under previously accepted ideas, if for one who follows it to a favorable judgment the penalty yet may fall. That question the Court does not decide. Unless it is decided, the question of adequacy, in any sense heretofore received, has not been determined, or an entirely new conception of adequacy has been approved. [321 U.S. 414, 478] v.
But there is a deeper fault, even if we assume what neither the statute nor the Court's opinion today justifies, that a potential offender who successfully challenges the constitutionality of a regulation or begins a challenge on constitutional grounds in the Emergency Court at any time before or during the criminal prosecution, cannot be convicted, at least until after final decision that the order is valid. There still remain those cases where he has either challenged unsuccessfully in the Emergency Court or has not challenged at all. In them the would-be offender is subject to criminal prosecution without a right to question in the criminal trial the constitutionality of the regulation on which his prosecution and conviction hinge. And this seems to be true without distinction as to the character of the ground on which he seeks to make the issue. To say that this does not operate unconstitutionally on the accused because he has the choice of refraining from violation or of testing the constitutional questions in a civil proceeding beforehand entirely misses the point. The fact is that if he violates the regulation he must be convicted, in a trial in which either an earlier and summary civil determination or the complete absence of a determination forecloses him on a crucial constitutional question. In short, his trial for the crime is either in two parts in two courts or on only a portion of the issues material to guilt in one court. This may be all very well for some civil proceedings. But, so far as I know, criminal proceedings of this character never before have received the sanction of Congress or of this Court. That, like many other criminals, an offender here can be punished for making the wrong guess as to the constitutionality of the regulation, I have no doubt. But that, unlike all other criminals, he can be convicted on a trial in two parts, one so summary and civil and the other criminal [321 U.S. 414, 479] or, in the alternative, on a trial which shuts out what may be the most important of the issues material to his guilt, I do deny.
By these provisions the purpose hardly is to be supposed to authorize splitting up a criminal trial into separate segments, with some of the issues essential to guilt triable before one court in the state and district where the crime was committed and others, equally essential, triable in another court in a highly summary civil proceeding held elsewhere, or to dispense with trial on them because that proceeding has not been followed. 34 If the validity of the [321 U.S. 414, 480] order, on constitutional or other grounds, has any substantial relationship to the petitioners' guilt, and it cannot be denied that it does, the short effect of the procedure is to chop up their trial into two separate, successive and distinct parts or proceedings, in each of which only some of the issues determinative of guilt can be tried, the two being connected only by the thread of finality which runs from the decision of the first into the second. The effect is to segregate out of the trial proper issues, whether of law or of fact, relating to the validity of the law for violation of which the defendants are charged, and to leave to the criminal court only the determination of whether a violation of the regulation as written actually took place and whether in some other respect the statute itself is invalid. If Congress can remove these questions, it can remove also all questions of validity of the statute or, it would seem, of law.
The consequences of this splitting hardly need further noting. On facts and issues material to validity of the regulation the persons charged are deprived of a full trial in the state or district where the crime occurs, even if the Emergency Court sits there, as it is not required to do. Their right to try those constitutional issues both of fact and of law on which a criminal conviction ultimately will hinge, is restricted rigidly to the introduction of written evidence before the administrator in a proceeding barely adequate, even under special circumstances like these, to meet the requirements of due process of law in civil proceedings. The court which makes the decision on these issues cannot consider the facts constituting the violation. It has no power to pass judgment of guilty or not guilty upon the whole of the evidence. It can only pronounce [321 U.S. 414, 481] the law valid or invalid in a setting wholly apart from any charge of crime, from the facts alleged as its commission, and from the usual protections which surround its trial.
A procedure so piecemeal, so chopped up, so disruptive of constitutional guaranties in relation to trials for crime, should not and, in my judgment, cannot be validated, as to such proceedings, under the Constitution. Even war does not suspend the protections which are inherently part and parcel of our criminal process. Such a dissection of the trial for crime could be supported, under our system, only upon some such notions as waiver and estoppel or res judicata, whether or not embodied in legislation. 36 These too are strange and inadequate vehicles for trying whether the citizen has been guilty of criminal conduct. They bar defense, while keeping prosecution open, before it begins. [321 U.S. 414, 482] Res judicata, by virtue of a judgment in some prior civil proceeding, where different constitutional guaranties relating to the mode and course of trial have play, has not done duty heretofore to replace either proof of facts before a jury or decision of constitutional questions necessary to make up the sum of guilt in the criminal proceeding itself. Congress can invade the judicial function in criminal cases no more by compelling the court to dispense with proof, jury trial or other constitutionally required characteristics than it can by denying all effect of finality to judicial judgments. Cf. Schneiderman v. United States, 320 U.S. 118 , concurring opinion at pages 167, 168, 63 S.Ct. 1333, at pages 1356, 1357. And while, as noted above, notions of waiver and estoppel have had place in criminal proceedings to an extent not wholly defined, in some instances harshly and artificially,37 they have not had effect heretofore to enable Congress to force a waiver of defense upon the individual by offering a choice between two kinds of trial, neither of which satisfies constitutional requirements for criminal trials. Certainly when the consequences are so novel and far reaching as they may be under this procedure, both for the individual and for the judicial system, these conceptions should not be given legal establishment to bring them into being.
The procedural pattern is one which may be adapted to the trial of almost any crime. Once approved, it is bound to spawn progeny. If in one case Congress thus can withdraw from the criminal court the power to consider the validity of the regulations on which the charge is based, it can do so for other cases, unless limitations are pointed out clearly and specifically. And it can do so for statutes as well. In short the way will have been found to avoid, if not altogether the power of the courts to review legislation for consistency with the Constitution,39 then in part at least their obligation to observe its commands and more especially the guaranteed protections of persons charged with crime in the trial of their causes. This is not merely control or definition of jurisdiction. It [321 U.S. 414, 484] is rather unwarranted abridgement of the judicial power in the criminal process, unless at the very least it is confined specifically to situations where the special proceeding provides a fair and equal substitute for full defense in the criminal trial or other adequate safeguard is afforded against punishment for violating an order which itself violates or may violate basic rights. So much should not be accomplished merely by giving to the failure to take advantage of opportunity for summary civil determination, coupled with a short statute of limitations upon its availability, the effect of a full and final criminal adjudication. To do this hardly observes the substance of 'adequacy' in criminal trials.
From what has been said it seems clear that Congress cannot forbid the enforcing court, exercising the criminal jurisdiction, to consider the constitutional validity of an order invalid on its face. Any other view would permit Congress to compel the courts to enforce unconstitutional laws. Nor, in my opinion, can Congress forbid consideration of validity in all cases, if it can in any, where the invalidity appears only from proof of facts extrinsic to the regulation. Again the racial or religious line is obvious and pertinent. If, for instance, one charged criminally with violating the regulation should tender proof it was being enforced in a manner to deny him the equal protection of the laws, because of his racial or religious connections, it is difficult to believe the evidence could be excluded consistently with the judicial obligation. The Constitution does not make judicial observance or enforcement of its basic guaranties depend on whether their violation appears from the face of legislation or only from its application to proven facts. Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1 , 64 S. Ct. 397; Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 373 , 374 S., 6 S.Ct. 1064, 1072, 1073; United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 , 152-154, 58 S.Ct. 778, 783, 784.
For legislation not void on its face, a presumption of constitutionality attaches and remains until it is proven [321 U.S. 414, 485] invalid or so in operation. In such cases there is no unfairness, nor any invasion of the court's paramount obligation, in requiring one who would avoid the regulations' impact to show they are not what they appear to be or that they are made to operate otherwise than as they purport or were intended. But it is one thing to say that burden must be borne within the enforcement proceeding itself and another to say it must be carried entirely outside it. To require the defendant to prove invalidity in such a situation in the criminal trial itself, upon a showing of violation of the statute, is wholly permissible. But for the court to be unable to receive tendered evidence which might disclose the statute's invalid character and effect, is quite different. Certainly, under the circumstances of this case, it would seem to be as much a violation of individual right and as much an invasion of the judicial function for Congress to command the court not to receive the evidence, regardless of its character or effect, as for it to direct the court to enforce a law or an order void on its face.
That argument would be more powerful if enforcement of the statute, and thus maintenance of price control, were [321 U.S. 414, 486] dependent upon accepting every feature. No doubt to impose the criminal sanction as has been done in this case implements the enforcement process with the deterrent effects which usually accompany that sanction. But neither its use nor enforcement of the statute's substantive prohibitions requires that the criminal court shall not consider the validity of the regulations.
With the arsenal of other valid legal weapons available, there can be no lack of speedy and effective measures to secure compliance. The regulations are effective until invalidated. They cannot be suspended by any court, pending final decision here, if the last source of relief is sought. All the armory of equity, and with it the sanctions of contempt, are available to keep the regulations in force and to prevent violations, at least until decision here is sought and had that the regulations are invalid. The same weapons are available to enforce them permanently if they are found valid. Apart from defense when charged with crime, the individual's only avenue of escape, and that not until final decision of invalidity has been made, is by protest and appeal through the single route prescribed. Finally, in addition to all this, the dealer may be punished for crime if he violates the regulation wilfully and cannot show it is invalid either in his defense or by securing a judgment to this effect through the protest procedure. In either case, in view of the statute's curtailment of his substantive rights and the consequent increase in the burden of proving facts sufficient to nullify the regulation,40 his chance for escape [321 U.S. 414, 487] becomes remote, to say the least. In view of all these resources and advantages, the assertion hardly is sustained that enforcement requires also depriving the accused of his opportunity for full and adequate defense in his criminal trial.
War requires much of the citizen. He surrenders rights for the time being to secure their more permanent establishment. Most men do so freely. According to our plan others must do so also, as far as the nation's safety requires. But the surrender is neither permanent nor total. The great liberties of speech and the press are curtailed but not denied. Religious freedom remains a [321 U.S. 414, 488] living thing. With these, in our system, rank the elemental protections thrown about the citizen charged with crime, more especially those forged on history's anvil in great crises. They secure fair play to the guilty and vindication for the innocent. By one means only may they be suspended, even when chaos threatens. Whatever else seeks to dispense with them or materially impair their integrity should fail. Not yet has the war brought extremity that demands or permits them to be put aside. Nor does maintaining price control require this. The effect, though not intended, of the provision which forbids a criminal court to 'consider the validity' of the law on which the charge of crime is founded, in my opinion, would be greatly to impair these securities. Hence I cannot assent to that provision as valid.
Different considerations, in part at any rate, apply in civil proceedings. 41 But for the trial of crimes no proce- [321 U.S. 414, 489] dure should be approved which dispenses with trial of any material issue or splits the trial into disjointed segments, one of which is summary and civil, the other but a remnant of the ancient criminal proceeding.
[ Footnote 1 ] The parties have not discussed in briefs or on argument, and we do not find it necessary to consider, the precise effect of this direction to stabilize prices 'so far as practicable' at the levels obtaining on September 15, 1942, upon the standards laid down by Section 2(a) of the Act and the discretion which they confer on the Administrator.
[ Footnote 2 ] The use of the March 16-28, 1942, base period is explained by the fact that wholesale meat prices had already been stabilized at approximately that level by Maximum Price Regulation No. 169 as originally issued on June 19, 1942, 7 Fed.Reg. 4653, and by the General Maximum Price Regulation issued April 28, 1942, 7 Fed.Reg. 3153, which forbade the sale of most commodities at prices in excess of the highest price charged by the seller during March, 1942. The Statement of Considerations accompanying the latter, 2 C.C.H. War Law Service-Price Control, 42,081, explains in some detail the considerations impelling the Administrator to the conclusion that stabilization at the levels obtaining in March, 1942 would be fair and equitable and would effectuate the purposes of the Act; it considers the price levels prevailing during October 1-15, 1941, and gives reasons why price stabilization at those levels would not be practicable. The Statement of Considerations accompanying Maximum Price Regulation No. 169 as originally issued, 2 C.C.H War Law Service-Price Control, 43,369A, refers to this discussion in explanation of the continuance of the use of March, 1942, levels as a base.
[ Footnote 3 ] For numerous instances in which comparable or shorter periods for resort to administrative relief as a prerequisite to proceeding in the courts have been held to be sufficient, see, e.g., Bellingham Bay, etc., Co. v. City of New Whatcom, 172 U.S. 314 , 19 S.Ct. 205, (10 days); Campbell v. City of Olney, 262 U.S. 352 , 43 S.Ct. 559 (20 days); Wick v. Chelan Electric Co., 280 U.S. 108 , 50 S.Ct. 41 (18 days); Phillips v. Commissioner, 283 U.S. 589 , 51 S.Ct. 608 (60 days); Opp Cotton Mills v. Administrator, 312 U.S. 126, 657 , 61 S.Ct. 524 (40 days).
[ Footnote 4 ] Revised Procedural Regulation No. 1, 7 Fed.Reg. 8961, authorized by 203(a), contain detailed provisions for extending the time for presentation of evidence when appropriate. 1300.30(c), 1300.33, 1300.35( a)(3).
[ Footnote 5 ] Nor is the inconvenience to petitioners of being required to make their objection to the Administrator in Washington, D.C., sufficient to outweigh the public interest, in the circumstances of this case, in having a centralized, unitary scheme of review of the regulations. The protest procedure is designed to be conducted primarily upon documentary evidence. Sec. 203(a); Revised Procedural Regulation No. 1, 1300.29-1300.31, 1300. 39. There would thus be no purpose in the personal presence of the protestant unless the protest were set for hearing by the Administrator, and in such a case the hearing may be held at any place designated by the Administrator and before a person designated by him. Id., 1300.39, 1300. 42. The Emergency Court of Appeals is likewise authorized to 'hold sessions at such places as it may specify' and does in fact hold sessions throughout the country as needed. 204(c); Rule 4(a) of its Rules of Procedure, 50 U.S.C.App. Supp. II following 924, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix following section 924.
[ Footnote 6 ] Revised Procedural Regulation No. 1 authorizes the filing at any time of a petition to amend a regulation, ( 1300.20) and authorizes the Administrator to treat a protest as a petition for amendment as well ( 1300.49).
[ Footnote 7 ] Congress has sought to minimize the burden so far as would be consistent with the public interest by providing expeditious procedure for the review, on protest and complaint, of a regulation's validity. Thus a protest must be filed within 60 days ( 203(a); the Administrator must take initial action on it within a reasonable time but not more than 30 days after its filing or 90 days after the issuance of the regulation ( 203(a); the complaint to the Emergency Court must be filed within 30 days ( 204(a); that Court is directed to 'prescribe rules governing its procedure in such manner as to expedite the determination of cases of which it has jurisdiction' ( 204(c); in order to promote that end as many judges as are needed may be designated to serve on it, it may sit in divisions, and may hold sessions at such places as it may specify ( 204(c ), and in fact it does sit in various parts of the country as the convenience of the parties may require; under its rules it is 'always ... open for the transaction of business' (Rule 4(a), 50 U.S.C.App., Supp. II following 924, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix following section 924); petitions for certiorari to review its decisions must be filed within 30 days ( 204( d); and this Court is directed to advance on the docket and expedite the decision of all cases from the Emergency Court ( 204(d). We cannot assume that the Administrator, who has a vital interest in the prompt and effective enforcement of the Act, would unreasonably delay action upon a protest; if he should, judicial remedies are not lacking, see Safeway Stores v. Brown, Em.App., 138 F.2d 278, 280.
[ Footnote 8 ] For other instances in which Congress has regulated and restricted the power of the federal courts to grant injunctions, see: 1. Section 16 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, 1 Stat. 82, Judicial Code 267, 28 U.S.C. 384, 28 U.S.C.A. 384, denying relief in equity where there is adequate remedy at law. 2. Section 5 of the Act of March 2, 1793, 1 Stat. 334, Judicial Code, 265, 28 U.S.C. 379, 28 U.S.C.A. 379, prohibiting injunction of state judicial proceedings. 3. Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 475, 26 U.S.C. 3653, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code, 3653, prohibiting suits to enjoin collection or enforcement of federal taxes. 4. The Johnson Act of May 14, 1934, 48 Stat. 775, 28 U.S.C. 41(1), 28 U.S.C.A. 41(1), restricting jurisdiction to enjoin orders of state bodies fixing utility rates. 5. Act of Aug. 21, 1937, 50 Stat. 738, 28 U.S.C. 41(1), 28 U.S.C. A. 41(1), similarly restricting jurisdiction to enjoin collection or enforcement of state taxes. 6. Section 17 of the Act of June 18, 1910, 36 Stat. 557 and 3 of the Act of Aug. 24, 1937, 50 Stat. 752, 28 U.S.C. 380 and 380a, 28 U.S.C.A. 380, 380a, requiring the convening of a three- judge court for the granting of temporary injunctions in certain cases and allowing a temporary restraining order by one judge only to prevent irreparable injury. 7. The Norris-La Guardia Act, 47 Stat. 70, 29 U.S.C. 101-115, 29 U.S.C.A. 101-115, regulating the issue of injunctions in labor disputes and prohibiting their issue 'contrary to the public policy' declared in the Act. In several cases such statutes were held to be merely declaratory of a previously obtaining rule for the guidance of judicial discretion. See e.g. In re State Railroad Tax Cases, 92 U.S. 575 , 613 (Act of March 2, 1867); Matthews v. Rodgers, 284 U.S. 521, 525 , 52 S.Ct. 217, 219 (Judicial Code 267); Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Huffman, 319 U.S. 293, 297 , 63 S.Ct. 1070, 1072 ( Act of Aug. 24, 1937).
[ Footnote 9 ] Compare the provisions of the Packers and Stockyards Act, 7 U.S.C . 194 and 195, 7 U.S.C.A. 194, 195, and of the Commodity Exchange Act, 7 U.S.C. 13a, 7 U.S.C.A. 13a, imposing criminal sanctions, and those of the Federal Trade Commission Act as amended, 15 U.S.C. 45(g)-( l), 15 U.S.C.A. 45(g-l), imposing heavy penalties, for violation of an administrative order which has become final by its affirmance upon the exclusive statutory method of review provided, or by the expiration of the time allowed for review without resort to the statutory procedure.
[ Footnote 1 ] The Act gives the Administrator no power with respect to wages, and limits his powers as respects fishery commodities (50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 902(i), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 902(i)), and agricultural commodities (50 U. S.C.Appendix, 903, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, 903).
[ Footnote 2 ] In citing cases decided by that court, I do so with no thought that in construing the Act's provisions that court has erred. On the contrary, I cite its interpretations of the statute as supporting my views that, as properly construed, the Act is invalid.
[ Footnote 3 ] Armour & Co. v. Brown, Em.App., 137 F.2d 233; Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Bowles, Em.App., 138 F.2d 669; Hillcrest Terrace Corp. v. Brown, Em.App ., 137 F.2d 663.
[ Footnote 1 ] Cf., e.g., Nebbia v. New York, 291 U.S. 502 , 54 S.Ct. 505, 89 A.L.R. 1469.
[ Footnote 2 ] Perhaps the nearest previous approach to control so extensive was in the National Industrial Recovery legislation.
[ Footnote 3 ] Cf. note 18 infra.
[ Footnote 4 ] It goes without saying that whatever scope is allowed for operation of governmental authority in peace continues to be effective in war.
[ Footnote 5 ] E.g., the administrator has no power to adopt codes of fair competition generally, such as was given under N.I.R.A. His principal function is single, to determine and make effective by regulation the maximum price at which a commodity may be sold. The task is vast and complex, in comparison with previously sustained price-fixing delegations, by virtue of the number of industries and items affected and the nation- wide scope of the authority. But the focus of the price-fixing function is narrow, although powerful, in its incidence upon a particular industry or operator.
[ Footnote 6 ] Cf. Judicial Review of Price Orders under the Emergency Price Control Act (1942) 37 Ill.L.Rev. 256, 263-264; and other materials cited infra notes 20, 21.
[ Footnote 7 ] By Section 205(f)(1), (2) licensing authority is given to the administrator, with special provisions for suspension for not more than twelve months by proceedings in state, territorial or federal district courts.
[ Footnote 8 ] It is conceded that questions concerning the validity of statutory provisions, as distinguished from regulations, remain determinable by enforcing courts. See Sen. Rep. No. 931, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 24-25, and compare H.R. 5479, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., printed in Hearings before Committee on Banking and Currency on H.R. 5479, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 4, 7- 8.
[ Footnote 9 ] Cf. Parts IV, V, infra.
[ Footnote 10 ] The Moses Taylor, 4 Wall. 411; Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503 , 64 S.Ct. 641; cf. Claflin v. Houseman, Assignee, 93 U.S. 130 ; Plaquemines Tropical Fruit Co. v. Henderson, 170 U.S. 511 , 18 S.Ct. 685.
[ Footnote 11 ] This it might have done, subject only to the requirement that the procedure specified for the single competent court afford a constitutionally adequate mode for determining the issues. Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., supra. In case criminal jurisdiction were conferred, observance of the requirements of Article III, 2, and of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments concerning such trials would be required. Cf. text infra, Parts V, VI.
[ Footnote 12 ] Cf. L'Hote v. New Orleans, 177 U.S. 587 , 20 S.Ct. 788; Welch v. Swasey, 214 U.S. 91 , 29 S.Ct. 567; Hamilton v. Kentucky Distilleries & Warehouse Co., 251 U.S. 146 , 40 S.Ct. 106.
[ Footnote 13 ] Metropolitan Casualty Ins. Co. v. Brownell, 294 U.S. 580 , 55 S.Ct. 538; United States v. Carolene Products Co., 304 U.S. 144 , 152-154, 58 S.Ct. 778, 783, 784.
[ Footnote 14 ] By Section 204(b) of the Act, the effectiveness of a judgment of the Emergency Court enjoining or setting aside the regulation, in whole or in part, is postponed until the expiration of thirty days from its entry and, if certiorari is sought here within that time, the postponement continues until this Court's denial of the writ becomes final or until other final disposition of the case by this Court. By Section 204(d) the Emergency Court and this Court are given exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of the regulation and all other courts are denied 'jurisdiction or power to consider' this question and to stay, restrain, enjoin or set aside any provision of the regulation or its enforcement. The net effect is to deprive all courts of power to suspend operation of the regulation pending final decision on its validity and to keep it in force until a final judgment of the Emergency Court, or of this Court on review of its decision, becomes effective.
[ Footnote 15 ] Cf. text infra, Part III, at notes 16, 17.
[ Footnote 16 ] There hardly can be question that whenever an administrative agency, acting within the discretion validly conferred upon it by Congress, promulgates a regulation or issues an order of general applicability it is 'making the law,' as effectively as is Congress when it enacts a specific prescription, by whatever name this may be called. United States v. Grimaud, 220 U.S. 506 , 31 S.Ct. 480; Avent v. United States, 266 U.S. 127 , 45 S.Ct. 34; United States v. Michigan Portland Cement Co., 270 U.S. 521 , 46 S.Ct. 395.
[ Footnote 17 ] Cf. the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Roberts. The notion that Congress somehow could cut off review of regulations for constitutional invalidity when it could not do so for statutes, of which suggestions appear in the legislative history and the briefs, was not adhered to in the oral argument as to regulations void on their face and is not tolerable when the effect would be to make the courts instruments for enforcing unconstitutional mandates. Cf. Part VI, infra.
[ Footnote 18 ] See note 17 supra. The unique circumstances involved in Kiyoshi Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 , 63 S.Ct. 1375, confine that case to its facts, including the particular emergency with which legislation there under review had dealt, as respects the issue of equal protection.
[ Footnote 19 ] Cf. notes 23, 33 infra.
[ Footnote 20 ] McAllister, Statutory Roads to Review of Federal Administrative Orders (1940) 28 Calif.L.Rev. 129, 166.
[ Footnote 21 ] Ibid. Cf. Judicial Review of Price Orders Under the Emergency Price Control Act (1942) 37 Ill.L.Rev. 256, 263; Stason, Timing of Judicial Redress from Erroneous Administrative Action (1941) 25 Minn.L.Rev. 560, 575, 576-581; Administrative Features of the Emergency Price Control Act (1942) 28 Va.L.Rev. 991, 998, 999; Reid and Hatton, Price Control and National Defense (1941) 36 Ill.L.Rev. 255, 283-284. For an analysis of litigation under this Act see Sprecher, Price Control in the Courts (1944) 44 Col.L.Rev. 34.
[ Footnote 22 ] The foreclosure may be founded upon notions of waiver, comity, putting an end to litigation, securing orderly procedure or the advantages of having available for consideration in the later stages the informed judgment of the trial tribunal, or some combination of these and other considerations. Cf. Stason, Timing of Judicial Review from Erroneous Administrative Action (1941) 25 Minn.L.Rev. 560, 576-581; Berger, Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies (1939) 48 Yale L.J. 980, 1006. And the rule against allowing collateral attack, where a judgment is involved, is relevant to the broad problem of foreclosure.
[ Footnote 23 ] Commonly it is said that 'jurisdictional' questions, particularly concerning the court's power to deal with the subject matter, may be raised at any stage or in a collateral attack. And this seems to be true also of some other constitutional issues through challenge to judgments by habeas corpus proceedings long after the judgment has become final. Cf., e. g., Ex parte Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 ; Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371 ; Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 , 58 S.Ct. 1019, 146 A.L.R. 357; Mooney v. Hollohan, 294 U.S. 103 , 55 S.Ct. 340, 98 A.L.R. 406. Compare Revised Rules of the Supreme Court of the United States 27, paragraph 6; cf. Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 362 , 30 S.Ct. 544, 547, 19 Ann.Cas. 705; Columbia Heights Realty Co. v. Rudolph, 217 U.S. 547 , 30 S.Ct. 381, 19 Ann.Cas. 854; Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448 , 47 S.Ct. 135; Mahler v. Eby, 264 U.S. 32, 45 , 44 S.Ct. 283, 288.
[ Footnote 24 ] Compare Ohio Valley Water Co. v. Ben Avon Borough, 253 U.S. 287 , 40 S.Ct. 527; Crowell v. Benson, 285 U.S. 22 , 52 S.Ct. 285; St. Joseph Stock Yards Co. v. United States, 298 U.S. 38 , 56 S.Ct. 720; Utah Fuel Co. v. National Bituminous Coal Comm., 306 U.S. 56 , 59 S.Ct. 409; with Myers v. Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp., 303 U.S. 41 , 58 S.Ct. 459.
[ Footnote 25 ] E.g., compare Federal Trade Commission v. Gratz, 253 U.S. 421 , 40 S.Ct. 572, with National Labor Relations Board v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co., 304 U.S. 333 , 58 S.Ct. 904; cf. also Morgan v. United States, 298 U.S. 468 , 56 S.Ct. 906; Id., 304 U.S. 1 , 58 S.Ct. 999; United States v. Morgan, 307 U.S. 183 , 59 S.Ct. 795. Compare note 24 supra; and see Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276 , 42 S.Ct. 492.
[ Footnote 26 ] Thus, in some cases review and enforcement are concentrated exclusively in the same court. Cf. National Labor Relations Act, 49 Stat. 449, 29 U.S.C. 151 et seq., 29 U.S.C.A. 151 et seq., giving the circuit courts of appeal exclusive jurisdiction to review and enforce the board's orders, to which no penalty attaches until the board has sought and obtained an order from the court for enforcement. With this done, there is no danger the individual will be sentenced for crime for failure to comply with an invalid order. And there is none that the court will be called upon to lend its hand in enforcing an unconstitutional edict or, for that matter, one merely in excess of statutory authority. Likewise, when there is provision for stay or suspension of the order pending determination of its validity, e.g., the Securities Act of 1933, 48 Stat. 81, 15 U.S.C. 77i, 15 U.S.C.A. 77i; the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 902, 15 U.S.C. 78y, 15 U.S.C.A. 78y; the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935, 49 Stat. 835, 15 U.S.C. 79x, 15 U.S.C.A. 79x. And this is true where the enforcing court is not forbidden to consider the validity of the order, a prohibition entirely novel to the Emergency Price Control Act.
[ Footnote 27 ] Cf. Wadley Southern Ry. v. Georgia, 235 U.S. 651 , 35 S.Ct. 214, and authorities cited. In notable instances, also, where no specific provision has been made for either judicial review or avoiding the irrevocable impact of possibly invalid administrative action, and review has not been expressly denied, the courts have been ready to find means for review and for averting the impact of the penalty until it has been had. E.g., Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 , 28 S.Ct. 441, 13 L.R.A., N.S., 932, 14 Ann.Cas. 764; cf. Southern Ry. Co. v. Virginia, 290 U.S. 190 , 54 S.Ct. 148.
[ Footnote 28 ] Cf. McAllister, op. cit. supra, note 20; and note 26 supra.
[ Footnote 29 ] Apparently it is contemplated that the 'affidavits or other written evidence' submitted in support of the objections be filed with the protest, though later submissions may be made at times and under regulations prescribed by the administrator, or when ordered by the Emergency Court, or to that court when the administrator requests. Sections 203(a), 204(a). The administrator is authorized to permit filing of protest after the sixty days have expired solely on grounds arising after that time. Section 203(a). He is required to grant or deny the protest, in whole or in part, notice the protest for a hearing, or provide an opportunity to present further evidence, within thirty days after the protest is filed or ninety days after issuance of the regulation or order, or in the case of a price schedule ninety days from the effective date, whichever occurs later. Ibid.
[ Footnote 30 ] Cf. note 29 supra. In the Emergency Court of Appeals, 'no objection to (the) regulation ... and no evidence in support of any objection thereto, shall be considered ... unless such objection' has been set forth in the protest or such evidence is in the transcript. Additional evidence can be admitted only if it was 'either offered to the Administrator and not admitted (by him) or ... could not reasonably have been offered to ... or included by the Administrator in such proceedings.' In that case it is to be presented to the administrator, received by him and certified to the court together with any modification he may make in the regulation. Where the administrator so requests, however, such additional evidence 'shall be presented directly to the court.' Section 204(a).
[ Footnote 31 ] Cf. note 14 supra.
[ Footnote 32 ] That is true whether the infraction occurs before or after the time for protest or appeal has passed and, it would seem, notwithstanding the protestant may proceed with all diligence. The statute makes no provision for relieving from its penal sanctions one who follows the protest procedure to the end in case the protest eventually is sustained, if meanwhile he disobeys the order. Punishment is not made dependent on or required to await the outcome of that proceeding. Rather, the enforcing court is commanded not to consider validity. The command is unqualified, unvarying and universal. It is cast in the compelling terms of 'jurisdiction.' Under the statute's provisions, it applies as much when trial and conviction occur before the Emergency Court's decision is final as afterwards.
[ Footnote 33 ] Cf. Bradley v. Richmond, 227 U.S. 477 , 33 S.Ct. 318, which involved a state prosecution for violating a state law. In affirming the conviction this Court rejected the contention that the administrative determination on which prosecution rested was unconstitutional. But it would not follow from the fact a state might thus condition its criminal proceedings consistently with the Fourteenth Amendment's requirement of due process that Congress can do likewise for federal criminal trials. Cf. infra Part V. Wadley Southern Ry. Co. v. Georgia, supra, also involved a state suit for civil penalty for violation of a state administrative order, to which the limitations of the Sixth Amendment would not apply. The dicta which the Court regards as pointing to the validity of the procedure here do not sustain it, not only for this reason, but because the special procedure was different, did not purport to foreclose defense to enforcement if not followed, and expressly asserted that, if followed, penalty could be imposed only for violations taking place after the order was adjudicated valid, not beforehand. This case involves the very risk the Court there said could not be imposed.
Other instances relied on by the Court involve only civil, not criminal consequences, or distinguishable instances of criminal prosecution, and therefore have no conclusive bearing here. As the Court seems to recognize, the question now presented was not presented or considered in Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U.S. 56 , 28 S.Ct. 428, or in United States v. Adams Express Co., 229 U.S. 381 , 33 S.Ct. 878. And it was not involved or determined in the cited decisions, either here or in the inferior federal courts, dealing with carriers who violate tariffs framed and filed by themselves and thereby become subject to penalty. The same is true of the cases holding that threatened criminal prosecution for violation of administrative orders cannot be enjoined.
In these decisions, none of the statutes forbade the enforcing court 'to consider the validity' of the orders, none afforded a special proceeding so summary as that provided here, and only United States v. Vacuum Oil Co., D.C., 158 F. 536, raised a constitutional question relevant here. Falbo v. United States, 320 U.S. 549 , 64 S.Ct. 346, involved a different procedure and a different and more urgent problem. Compare Part VII infra. It may be doubted the decision's effect is to preclude the enforcing court from examining constitutional questions affecting the order's validity.
[ Footnote 34 ] Nor, according to accepted notions of the criminal process, has it ever been contemplated that some of the issues of fact should be provable by confrontation of witnesses and others by written evidence only, when other evidence is or may be available. If, for instance, Congress should define an act as a crime, but should require that in the trial issues relating to the validity of the law furnishing the basis for the charge should be proven only by affidavit, though others by the normal processes of proof, the proceeding hardly could be held to comport with the kind of trial the Constitution, and more particularly the Sixth Amendment requires. And if Congress should go further and provide for determination of the issues triable only by affidavit in a court or other body sitting elsewhere than in the state and district of the crime, with other issues triable before a court with a jury empanelled there, but with that court compelled to give finality to the other's findings against the accused, the departure from constitutional requirements would seem to be only the more obvious. This is not far in effect, if it is at all, from what has been done here.
[ Footnote 35 ] His only remedy is to begin a new protest proceeding ( 203(a)), which is not only as limited in character as the original one, but under the administrator's procedural regulations must be 'filed within ... sixty days after the protestant has had, or could reasonably have had, notice' of the changed facts. Revised Procedural Regulation 1, 1300.26. Cf. notes 29, 30 supra.
[ Footnote 36 ] Cf. note 22 supra.
[ Footnote 37 ] Compare Johnson v. Zerbst, 304 U.S. 458 , 58 S.Ct. 1019, 146 A.L.R. 357; Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60 , 62 S.Ct. 457; with Patton v. United States, 281 U.S. 276 , 50 S.Ct. 253, 70 A.L.R. 263; Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 317 U.S. 269 , 63 S.Ct. 236, 143 A.L.R. 435.
[ Footnote 38 ] Cf. note 41 infra.
[ Footnote 39 ] Cf. McLaren, Can a Trial Court of the United States Be Completely Deprived of the Power to Determine Constitutional Questions? (1944) 30 A.B. A.J. 17.
[ Footnote 40 ] That burden is heavy, as this case illustrates. Petitioners attacked the regulation's constitutionality on the ground that, by compelling them to sell at prices less than cost, it deprived them of their property without due process of law. And, on the same ground, they urged the regulation violates the statute's requirement that the price fixed allow margins which are 'generally fair and equitable.' But the Fifth Amendment does not insure a profit to any given individual or group not under legal compulsion to render service, where doing so would contravene an enacted policy of Congress sustainable on a balance of public necessity and private hardship. Cf. the Court's opinion herein and authorities cited; also Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. 503 , 64 S.Ct. 641. And in this case both the statute's basic purpose and its terms, as well as the legislative history, cf. Sen.Rep. No. 931, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. 15, show that Congress intended to forbid only a price so low that the trade in general, not merely some individual dealers or groups, could not have the margin prescribed. Bowles v. Willingham, supra. Petitioners' offers of proof, in this respect, which the trial court rejected, went only to show that they, or at most the meat wholesalers of Boston, could sell beef only at a loss. Harsh as this may seem in individual instances, it was Congress' judgment that the interests of dealers who could not operate profitably at a level of prices permitting a fair margin generally to the trade, would have to give way, in the acute prevailing circumstances, to the paramount national necessity of keeping prices stabilized and that judgment, by virtue of those circumstances, was for Congress to make. Accordingly the tendered proof hardly was sufficient to raise an issue of confiscation giving ground for setting aside the regulation.
[ Footnote 41 ] Cf. concurring opinion in Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U.S. --, 64 S. Ct. 641. Limitations applicable solely to criminal proceedings fall to one side. Giving the decision in the special proceeding, or failure to seek it after reasonable opportunity, the effect of res judicata in later civil proceedings does not therefore deprive the party affected of opportunity for full and adequate defense in his criminal trial, where not only his rights of property, but his liberty or his life may be at stake.

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