Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/321/288
Timestamp: 2014-03-07 07:21:10
Document Index: 641796726

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 601', 'art 904', '§ 601', '§ 904', '§ 904', '§ 904', '§ 904', '§ 904', '§ 904', '§ 16', '§ 13', '§ 16', '§ 16', '§ 260', 'art 2', '§ 151', '§ 601', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 8', '§ 41', '§ 43', '§ 24', '§ 41']

STARK et al. v. WICKARD, Secretary of Agriculture, et al. | LII / Legal Information Institute
Supreme Court aboutsearch liibulletin subscribe previews STARK et al. v. WICKARD, Secretary of Agriculture, et al.
321 U.S. 288 (64 S.Ct. 559, 88 L.Ed. 733)
Argued: Jan. 14, 1944.
[HTML] Mr. Edward B. Hanify, of Boston, Mass., for petitioners.
This class action was instituted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, to procure an injunction prohibiting the respondent Secretary of Agriculture from carrying out certain provisions of his Order No. 4, effective August 1, 1941, dealing with the marketing of milk in the Greater Boston, Massachusetts, area. See Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, 50 Stat. 246, 7 U.S.C. 601 et seq., 7 U.S.C.A. § 601 et seq., and Order 4, United States Department of Agriculture, Surplus Marketing Administration, Title 7, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 904. The district court dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and its judgment was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, 136 F.2d 786. The respondent War Food Administrator was joined in this court upon a showing that he had been given powers concurrent with those of the Secretary. See Executive Order No. 9334, 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix, § 601 note, filed April 23, 1943, 8 F.R. 5423, 5425. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the question to the administration of this Act. 320 U.S. 723, 64 S.Ct. 58.
The district court for the District of Columbia has a general equity jurisdiction authorizing it to hear the suit;
but in order to recover, the petitioners must go further and show that the act of the Secretary amounts to an interference with some legal right of theirs.
Although this Court has previously reviewed the provisions of that statute at length and upheld its constitutionality,
some further reference to it is necessary to an understanding of the producer's interest in the funds dealt with by the Order.
state commerce as will establish prices to farmers at a level that will give agricultural commodities a purchasing power with respect to articles that farmers buy, equivalent to the purchasing power of agricultural commodities in the base period; and, in the case of all commodities for which the base period is the prewar period, August 1909 to July 1914, will also reflect current interest payments per acre on farm indebtedness secured by real estate and tax payments per acre on farm real estate, as contrasted with such interest payments and tax payments during the base period. The base period in the case of all agricultural commodities except tobacco and potatoes shall be the prewar period, August 1909-July 1914. In the case of tobacco and potatoes, the base period shall be the postwar period, August 1919July 1929.
Under the Order, the handler does not make final settlement with the producer until the blended price11 has been set, although he must make a part payment on or before the tenth of each month. § 904.8. But within eight days after the end of each calendar monththe so-called 'delivery period', § 904.1(9)the handler must report his sales and deliveries, classified by use value, § 904,5, to a 'market administrator.' § 904.1(8). On the basis of these reports, the administrator computes the blended price and announces it on the twelfth day following the end of the delivery period. § 904.7(b). On the twenty-fifth day, the handlers are required to pay the balance due of the blended price so fixed to the producers. § 904.8(b).
Congress has not only devised different schemes of enforcement for different Acts. It has from time to time modified and restricted the scope of review under the same Act. Compare § 16 of the Act to Regulate Commerce, February 4, 1887, c. 104, 24 Stat. 379, 384, 385, with § 13 of the Commerce Court Act, June 18, 1910, c. 309, 36 Stat. 539, 554, 555, and 49 U.S.C. 16(12), 49 U.S.C.A. § 16(12), and the latter with enforcement of reparation orders, 49 U.S.C. 16(2), 49 U.S.C.A. § 16(2). Moreover the same statute, as is true of the Interstate Commerce Act, may make some orders not judicially reviewable for any purpose, see e.g., United States v. Los Angeles R.R., 273 U.S. 299, 47 S.Ct. 413, 71 L.Ed. 651, or reviewable by some who are adversely affected and not by others, e.g., Singer & Sons v. Union Pacific Co., 311 U.S. 295, 305-308, 61 S.Ct. 254, 258260, 85 L.Ed. 198. The oldest scheme of administrative controlour customs revenue legislationshows in its evolution all sorts of permutations and combinations in using available administrative and judicial remedies. See, for instance, Elliott v. Swartwout, 10 Pet. 137, 9 L.Ed. 373; Cary v. Curtis, 3 How. 236, 11 L.Ed. 576; Den ex dem. Murray's Lessee et al. v. Hoboken Land & Improvement Co., 18 How. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372; Hilton v. Merritt, 110 U.S. 97, 38 S.Ct. 548, 28 L.Ed. 83; for a general survey, see Freund, Administrative Powers over Persons and Property, §§ 260-62. And only the other day we found the implications of the Railway Labor Act, c. 347, 44 Stat. (part 2) 577, as amended, c. 691, 48 Stat. 1185, 45 U.S.C. 151 et seq., 45 U.S.C.A. § 151 et seq. to be such that courts could not even exercise the function of keeping the National Mediation Board within its statutory authority. Switchmen's Union v. National Mediation Board, 320 U.S. 297, 64 S.Ct. 95. Were this list of illustrations extended and the various regulatory schemes thrown into a hotchpot, the result would be hopeless discord. And to do so would be to treat these legislative schemes as though they were part of a single body of law instead of each being a self-contained scheme.
The divers roles played by judicial review in the administration of regulatory measures other than the Agricultural Marketing Act cannot tell us when and for whom judicial review of administrative action can be had under that Act. The fact that certain classes of individuals adversely affected by a ruling of the Interstate Commerce Commission can and other classes cannot obtain redress in court, does not tell us what classes may and what classes may not obtain judicial redress for action by the Secretary of Agriculture which affects these respective classes adversely. And to cite the Switchmen's case, supra, in support of this case is to treat our decisions too lightly. In the numerous cases either granting or denying judicial review, grant or denial were reached not by applying some 'natural law' of judicial review nor on the basis of some general body of doctrines for construing the diverse provisions of the great variety of federal regulatory statutes. Judicial review when recognizedits scope and its incidencewas derived from the materials furnished by the particular statute in regard to which the opportunity for judicial review was asserted. This is the lesson to be drawn from the prior decisions of this Court on judicial review, and not any doctrinaire notions of general applicability to statutes based on different schemes of administration and conveying different purposes by Congress in the utilization of administrative and judicial remedies for the enforcement of law. However useful judicial review may be, it is for Congress and not for this Court to decide when it may be usedexcept when the Constitution commands it. In this case there is no such command. Common-law remedies withheld by Congress and unrelated to a new scheme for enforcing new rights and duties should not be engrafted upon remedies which Congress saw fit to particularize. To do so impliedly denies to Congress the constitutional right of choice in the selection of remedies, and turns common-law remedies into constitutional necessities simply because they are old and familiar.
In 1931 and 1932, prices of manufactured dairy products reached the lowest level in twenty-five years. Because of their relatively weak bargaining position, milk producers suffered most seriously. See Mortenson, Milk Distribution as a Public Utility, p. 6; Black, The Dairy Industry and the AAA, c. III; State Milk and Dairy Legislation (U.S. Gov't Printing Office, 1941) p. 3. Accordingly, Congress decided that the public interest in the handling of milk in interstate commerce could no longer be left to the haggling of a disorderly market, mitigated by inadequate organization within the industry. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, c. 25, 48 Stat. 31, was the result. The 'essential purpose' of the series of enactments thus initiated was to raise the producer's prices. Sen.Rep. No. 1011, 74th Cong., 3d Sess., p. 3. The Act of 1933 was amended in 1935, c. 641, 49 Stat. 750, and partially reenacted and amended by the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937, with which we are here concerned. Chapter 296, 50 Stat. 246, c. 567, 50 Stat. 563, 7 U.S.C. 601 et seq., 7 U.S.C.A. § 601 et seq.
By denying them access to the courts Congress has not left producers to the mercy of the Secretary of Agriculture. Congress merely has devised means other than judicial for the effective expression of producers' interests in the terms of an order. Before the Secretary may issue an order he is required to 'give due notice of and an opportunity for a hearing upon a proposed order.' § 8c(3). At such a hearing all interested persons may submit relevant evidence, and the procedure makes adequate provision for notice to those who may be affected by an order. See Administrative Procedure and Practice in the Department of Agriculture under the Agricultural Marketing Agreement Act of 1937 (U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1939) p. 11 et seq. Nor are these the only or the most effective means for safeguarding the producer's interest. While an order may be issued despite the objection of handlers of more than 50% of the volume of the commodity covered by the order, no order may issue when not approved by at least two-thirdseither numerically or according to volume of productionof the producers. § 8c(9).
The fact that Congress made specific provision for submission of some defined questions to judicial review would hardly appear to be an argument for inferring that judicial review even of broader scope is also open as to other questions for which Congress did not provide judicial review. The obvious conclusion called for is that as to such other questions, judicial review was purposefully withheld. In the frame of this statute such an omission should not be treated as having no meaning, or rather as meaning that an omission is to be given the same effect as an inclusion. Nor does § 8a(8) referring to remedies 'existing at law or in equity' touch our problem. That only adds to the remedies in § 8a(5)(7) for the enforcement of the Act. It in no way qualifies or expands the express provisions of the Statute in § 8c(15) for judicial review of such an order as the presentspecification of the class of persons who are given the right to resort to courts and narrow limitation of the scope of judicial review. The remedy of review here sought by producers is by § 8c(15) explicitly restricted to handlers; and such review is not like that before the Court, a conventional suit in equity, but is a procedure for review of an adverse ruling in a price proceeding before the Secretary of Agriculture. It is a review of an administrative review, not an independent judicial determination.
See 18 D.C.Code § 41, as amended, 49 Stat. 1921. The District of Columbia court may also exercise the same jurisdiction of United States district courts generally, 18 D.C.Code § 43, which have jurisdiction under the Judicial Code over cases arising under acts regulating interstate commerce. Judicial Code, § 24(8), 28 U.S.C. 41(8), 28 U.S.C.A. § 41(8); Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38, 59 S.Ct. 648, 83 L.Ed. 1092; Turner, Dennis & Lowry Lumber Co. v. Chicago, M. & St. P. Ry., 271 U.S. 259, 46 S.Ct. 530, 70 L.Ed. 934; Robertson v. Argus Hosiery Mills, 6 Cir., 121 F.2d 285.
'Sec. 2. It is hereby declared to be the policy of Congress