Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/307/588/case.php
Timestamp: 2017-12-15 12:18:28
Document Index: 704587928

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 8', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 16']

It is unnecessary to detail the facts of each case. They are two of many instituted by the plaintiffs to secure obedience to the Order. On October 1, 1937, bills of complaint were filed in the District Court for the District of Massachusetts, 21 F.Supp. 321, for the purpose of enjoining Hood & Sons, Noble's Milk Company and chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Order No. 4, as amended, which the plaintiffs seek to enforce, is the culmination of an extended effort by the Secretary to work out a plan to regulate the marketing of milk in the Boston area. Order No. 4 was originally issued on February 7, 1936, under the Agricultural Adjustment Act. [Footnote 2] All steps leading to its issuance were taken. On November 30, 1935, the Secretary gave notice of a public hearing on a proposed marketing agreement and order. Hearings were held. A marketing agreement was tentatively approved which handlers failed to accept. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
After the passage of the Marketing Act, the Secretary, on June 24, 1937, gave notice of a hearing upon proposed amendments to Order No. 4. On the following day, he terminated the suspension of the formal and administrative provisions as of July 1, and of the price-fixing provisions as of August 1. Hearings were held. A proposed marketing agreement failed of approval by the handlers. On July 17, 1937, a referendum took place. It will be discussed later at some length because of contentions which question its validity. On July 27, 1937, acting pursuant to § 8c(9), the Secretary determined that the failure of the handlers to sign tended to prevent effectuation of the declared policy of the Act; that issuance of the proposed amendments to the Order was the only practical means of advancing the interests of milk producers in the area, and that the issuance was approved by over 70 percent of the producers who, during May, 1937, were engaged in the production of milk for sale in the area. The President approved the determination. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
There are two use classifications -- roughly, fluid and nonfluid. A price is stated for Class I or fluid milk; a formula, based primarily on the price of cream in Boston and casein in New York, is provided for the calculation of the Class II price for each delivery period. Minimum prices determine the value of all the milk delivered by all producers to all the handlers subject to the Order. Except to associations of producers for Class I milk, payment chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The defendants urge that the decree of the District Court should be reversed because of error under the Constitution, under the statute, under the Order itself. It is contended that the equalization provisions of the amended Order violate the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment; that the price-fixing features of the Act and Order constitute an invalid exercise of the power to regulate commerce and an invasion of the powers reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment; [Footnote 4] and that the Act involves delegation of legislative power. The amendments to the Order are said to be void because an essential finding required by the statute is lacking. The referendum among producers is assailed as improperly conducted. And the defendants in No. 772 raise the point that the Market Administrator failed to comply with the provisions of the amended Order. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Ordinarily the base period of § 2 is to be used. It is only after a finding that the purchasing power of the commodity during the period fixed in § 2 cannot be satisfactorily determined from available statistics of the Department of Agriculture that the Secretary, by § 8e, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
is authorized to find and proclaim the post-war base period. By § 8c(1), the Secretary is authorized to issue "and from time to time amend" orders. Obviously, as a general clause to make all the provisions of §§ 8c, 8d, and 8e applicable to amendments, § 8c(17) was adopted. Without it, questions would have been pertinent as to the applicability to amended orders of various provisions in these sections. Doubt would arise as to the power to change the base period after it was once determined. There would seem to be no occasion to review the absence of satisfactory statistics, however, on a proposed amendment which does not involve any change in the base period. The requirement for finding and proclamation in adopting a base period is not intended to force the Secretary to go through a meaningless ritual. A determination of the necessity of using the post-war base period, once made and proclaimed, satisfies the conditions of §§ 8c(17) and 8e for amendments, so long as no amendment is made which involves a change in the base period. This has been the administrative construction [Footnote 6] where amendments have been made to orders which had utilized a post-war base period. The plaintiffs show this by a series of references to the Federal Register which are not challenged. [Footnote 7] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It is said that the Secretary, by this restriction, disregarded the language of the statute as to producers eligible to vote, and that the ballot was either accorded to producers not entitled to vote or denied to qualified producers. Specifically, the following errors are urged: (1) A large number of southern and western producers who delivered to stations shipping cream were not permitted to vote. (2) Many New England or Eastern New York producers voted who delivered to handlers at plants which shipped only cream in the representative period. (3) Many voted who produced milk on farms as to which no certificate of registration had been issued, as required by §§ 16A and 16C of the Massachusetts milk law. [Footnote 9] (4) A number of approving producers delivered milk to stations which shipped less than 50 percent of their product to the Boston area. (5) Cooperatives cast votes in favor of the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The milk of the southern and western producers outside the milkshed could not be sent into the marketing area in fluid form, for their handlers were not licensed to sell milk in the area. The station in Indiana, used in the hearings as illustrative of the situation, held a license for the emergency shipments of sweet cream only. The exclusion of the southern and western producers therefore was proper. They are located outside the Boston milkshed; they do not produce any part of the burdensome surplus of fluid milk. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Violation of Order. The decree directs the defendants to pay to the Market Administrator for distribution to the producers through the equalization fund the amounts chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
As the action of handlers forms the ground for the initiation of regulation under the Act [Footnote 17] and for classification, reports, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
calculation, and payment under the Order, [Footnote 18] we conclude that the milk received by handlers for use in the area is the proper basis of computation. True, the reports are based on the delivery of milk by defined producers, but, in view of the terms of the Order as a whole, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The further contention is made that the Secretary failed to make a finding as to the tendency of the reinstatement chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In my view, the Act vests in the Secretary authority to determine, first, what of a number of enumerated commodities chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The supposed standards by which the Secretary is to be governed turn out, upon examination, to be no standards whatever. All of the choices mentioned are, according to the Act, to be made if the Secretary has reason chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
If, then, the separate objects to be attained were matters susceptible of a definite finding, there would still be chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The first thing the Secretary is permitted to accomplish by regulation, so the statute declares, is the parity in purchasing power of the price to be received by producers with that received in the base period. This parity is to be in terms of things farmers purchase. A moment's reflection will show that any calculation of such parity is impossible. The things farmers purchase, the relative quantities in which they purchase them, and their price in terms of milk vary from month to month and from year to year. Moreover, the Secretary is not to establish a parity between two past periods, but is to regulate the industry in such fashion as will, in his opinion, produce for the future a parity of the purchasing power of milk with its purchasing power in the base period. The Secretary's conclusion must lie in the realm of hope or opinion, and not in that of ascertained fact. The major objective of chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Section 8c(5) applies to orders affecting milk and its products. Section 8c(7) refers to orders affecting any of the commodities named in the Act. The first requires that any order affecting milk must contain one, and may contain others, of seven specified conditions. The second requires that, in any order, there must be included one, and there may be included others, of four conditions. These sections give the Secretary the choice of three independent programs for raising the price of milk -- namely, bargaining with handlers, stabilizing the retail price, or fixing prices to be paid producers. Within each, variation of the widest sort is allowed. Moreover, the Act permits alternative schemes for distributing amongst the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary