Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/327/186/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-12-16 03:20:32
Document Index: 25327629

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 11', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 13', '§ 13', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 9', '§ 11']

These cases bring for decision important questions concerning the Administrator's right to judicial enforcement of subpoenas duces tecum issued by him in the course of investigations conducted pursuant to § 11(a) of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 52 Stat. 1060. His claim is founded directly upon § 9, which incorporates the enforcement provisions of §§ 9 and 10 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, 38 Stat. 717. [Footnote 1] The subpoenas sought the production of specified records to determine whether petitioners were violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, including records relating to coverage. Petitioners, newspaper publishing corporations, maintain that the Act is not applicable to them, for constitutional and other reasons, and insist that the question of coverage must be adjudicated before the subpoenas may be enforced. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In No. 63, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit likewise rejected the company's position, one judge dissenting on the ground that probable cause had not been shown. 148 F.2d 57. It accordingly reversed the District Court's order of dismissal in the proceeding to show cause, which in effect denied enforcement for want of a showing of coverage. Application of Walling, 49 F.Supp. 659. [Footnote 3] The chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Because of the importance of the issues for administration of the Act and also on account of the differences in the grounds for the two decisions, as well as between them chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The broadside assertion that petitioners "could not be covered by the Act," for the reason that "application of this Act to its newspaper publishing business would violate its rights as guaranteed by the First Amendment," is chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioners' narrower argument, of allegedly invalid classification, [Footnote 9] arises from the statutory exemptions and may be shortly dismissed. The intimation that the Act falls by reason of the exclusion of seamen, farm workers and others by § 13(a) is hardly more than a suggestion, and is dismissed accordingly. Cf. Buck v. Bell, 274 U. S. 200, 274 U. S. 208. The contention drawn from the exemption of employees of small newspapers by § 13(a)(8) deserves only slightly more attention. [Footnote 10] It seems to be two-fold, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Other questions pertain to whether enforcement of the subpoenas as directed by the Circuit Courts of Appeals will violate any of petitioners' rights secured by the Fourth chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The short answer to the Fourth Amendment objections is that the records in these cases present no question of actual search and seizure, but raise only the question whether orders of court for the production of specified records have been validly made; and no sufficient showing appears to justify setting them aside. [Footnote 13] No officer or other person has sought to enter petitioners' premises against their will, to search them, or to seize or examine their books, records or papers without their assent, otherwise than pursuant to orders of court authorized by law and made after adequate opportunity to present objections, which in fact were made. [Footnote 14] Nor has any objection been taken to the breadth of the subpoenas or to any other specific defect which would invalidate them. [Footnote 15] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The cited authorities would be sufficient to dispose of the Fourth Amendment argument, and more recent decisions confirm their ruling. [Footnote 18] Petitioners, however, are insistent, in their contrary views, both upon the constitutional phases and in their asserted bearing upon the intention of Congress. While we think those views reflect a confusion not justified by the actual state of the decisions, the confusion has acquired some currency, as the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
There are two difficulties with petitioners' theory concerning the intent of Congress. One is that the argument from the so-called legislative history flies in the face of the powers expressly granted to the Administrator and the courts by §§ 9 and 11(a), so flatly that to accept petitioners' view would largely nullify them. [Footnote 20] Furthermore, the excerpted history from the later appropriation matters does not give the full story, and, when that is considered, the claimed interpretation is not made out, regardless of its retrospective aspect. [Footnote 21] Moreover, the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Section 11(a) expressly chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The subpoena power conferred by § 9 (through adoption of § 9 of the Federal Trade Commission Act) is chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
given in aid of this investigation and, in case of disobedience, the District Courts are called upon to enforce the subpoena through their contempt powers, [Footnote 24] without express condition requiring showing of coverage. [Footnote 25] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Accordingly, if §§ 9 and 11(a) are not to be construed as authorizing enforcement of the orders, it must be, as petitioners say, because this construction would make them so dubious constitutionally as to compel resort to an interpretation which saves, rather than to one which destroys or is likely to do so. The Court has adopted this course at least once in this type of case. [Footnote 27] But, if the same course is followed here, the judgments must be reversed with the effect of cutting squarely into the power of Congress. For to deny the validity of the orders would be in effect to deny not only Congress' power to enact the provisions sustaining them, but also its authority to delegate effective power to investigate violations of its own laws, if not perhaps also its own power to make such investigations. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The confusion is due in part to the fact that this is the very kind of situation in which the decisions have moved with variant direction, although without actual conflict when all of the facts in each case are taken into account. Notwithstanding this, emphasis and tone at times are highly contrasting, with consequent overtones of doubt and confusion for validity of the statute or its application. The subject matter perhaps too often has been generative of heat, rather than light, for the border along which the cases lie is one where government intrudes upon different areas of privacy, and the history of such intrusions has brought forth some of the stoutest and most effective chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The matter of requiring the production of books and records to secure evidence is not as one-sided, in this kind of situation, as the most extreme expressions of either emphasis would indicate. With some obvious exceptions, there has always been a real problem of balancing the public interest against private security. The cases for protection of the opposing interests are stated as clearly as anywhere, perhaps, in the summations, quoted in the margin, [Footnote 30] of two former members of this Court, each of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The confusion, obscuring the basic distinction between actual and so-called "constructive" search has been accentuated where the records and papers sought are of corporate character, as in these cases. Historically, private corporations have been subject to broad visitorial power, both in England and in this country. And it long has been established that Congress may exercise wide investigative power over them, analogous to the visitorial power of the incorporating state, [Footnote 31] when their activities take place within or affect interstate commerce. [Footnote 32] Correspondingly, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
it has been settled that corporations are not entitled to all of the constitutional protections which private individuals have in these and related matters. As has been noted, they are not at all within the privilege against self-incrimination, although this Court more than once has said that the privilege runs very closely with the Fourth Amendment's search and seizure provisions. [Footnote 33] It is also settled that an officer of the company cannot refuse to produce its records in his possession upon the plea that they either will incriminate him or may incriminate it. [Footnote 34] And, although the Fourth Amendment has been chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Wilson case has set the pattern of later decisions and has been followed without qualification of its ruling. [Footnote 37] Contrary suggestions or implications may be explained as dicta; [Footnote 38] or by virtue of the presence of an actual illegal search and seizure, the effects of which the Government sought later to overcome by applying the more liberal doctrine chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
devolved in relation to "constructive search"; [Footnote 39] or by the scope of the subpoena in calling for documents so broadly or indefinitely that it was thought to approach in this respect the character of a general warrant or writ of assistance, odious in both English and American history. [Footnote 40] But no case has been cited or found in which, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
As this has taken from in the decisions, the following specific results have been worked out. It is not necessary, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
When these principles are applied to the facts of the present cases, it is impossible to conceive how a violation of petitioners' rights could have been involved. Both chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
were corporations. The only records or documents sought were corporate ones. No possible element of self-incrimination was therefore presented, or in fact claimed. All the records sought were relevant to the authorized inquiry, [Footnote 46] the purpose of which was to determine two issues, whether petitioners were subject to the Act and, if so, whether they were violating it. These were subjects of investigation authorized by § 11(a), the latter expressly, the former by necessary implication. [Footnote 47] It is not to be doubted that Congress could authorize investigation of these matters. In all these respects, [Footnote 48] the specifications chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Myers case did not involve a subpoena duces tecum, but was a suit to enjoin the National Labor Relations Board from holding a hearing upon a complaint against an employer alleged to be engaged in unfair labor practices forbidden by the Wagner Act, 49 Stat. 449. The hearing required an investigation and determination of coverage, involving as in this case the question whether the company was engaged in commerce. It denied this upon allegations thought to sustain the denial, as well as chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
the futility, expensiveness and vexatious character of the hearing to itself. [Footnote 50] This Court held that the District Court was without jurisdiction to enjoin the hearing. Regarding as appropriate the procedure before the Board and as adequate the provisions for judicial review of its action, including its determination of coverage, the Court sustained the exclusive jurisdiction of the Board, and of the Court of Appeals upon review, to determine that question, with others committed to their judgment, in the statutory proceeding for determining whether violations of the Act exist. The opinion referred to the Board's subpoena power, also to its authority to apply to a District Court for enforcement, and stated that, "to such an application, appropriate defense may be made." But the decision's necessary effect was to rule that it was not "an appropriate defense" that coverage had not been determined prior to the hearing or, it would seem necessarily to follow, prior to the Board's preliminary investigation of violation. If this is true in the case of the Board, it would seem to be equally true in that of the Administrator. [Footnote 51] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
On the other hand, petitioners' view, if accepted, would stop much if not all of investigation in the public interest at the threshold of inquiry and, in the case of the Administrator, is designed avowedly to do so. This would render substantially impossible his effective discharge of the duties of investigation and enforcement which Congress has placed upon him. And if his functions could be thus blocked, so might many others of equal importance. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The showing in No. 61 was clearly sufficient to constitute "probable cause" in this sense under conceptions of coverage prevailing at the time of the hearing, [Footnote 52] whether chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Congress has made no requirements in terms of any showing of "probable cause", [Footnote 54] and, in view of what has already been said, any possible constitutional requirement chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The result therefore sustains the Administrator's position that his investigative function, in searching out violations with a view to securing enforcement of the Act, is essentially the same as the grand jury's, or the court's in issuing other pretrial orders for the discovery of evidence, [Footnote 55] and is governed by the same limitations. These are that he shall not act arbitrarily or in excess of his statutory authority, but this does not mean that his inquiry must be "limited . . . by . . . forecasts of the probable result of the investigation. . . ." Blair v. United States, 250 U. S. 273, 250 U. S. 282; cf. Hale v. Henkel, 201 U. S. 43. Nor is the judicial function either abused or abased, as has been suggested, [Footnote 56] by leaving to it the determination of the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Nor is there room for intimation that the Administrator has proceeded in these cases in any manner contrary to chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Perhaps we are too far removed from the experiences of the past to appreciate fully the consequences that may result from an irresponsible though well meaning use of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary