Source: https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/382-u-s-111-606654962
Timestamp: 2020-05-30 19:44:50
Document Index: 718879472

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 2281', '§ 1253', '§ 2281', '§ 451', '§ 2281', '§ 1253', '§ 2281', '§ 2281', '§ 2281']

382 U.S. 111 (1965), 9, Swift & Co. v. Wickham - Federal Cases - Case Law - VLEX 606654962
382 U.S. 111 (1965), 9, Swift & Co. v. Wickham
Citation: 382 U.S. 111, 86 S.Ct. 258, 15 L.Ed.2d 194
Party Name: Swift & Co. v. Wickham
Case Date: November 22, 1965
382 U.S. 111 (1965)
86 S.Ct. 258, 15 L.Ed.2d 194
Appellants, two meat-packing companies, sued in the Federal District Court to enjoin enforcement of a New York statute requiring that the label for packaged poultry disclose the weight of the unstuffed bird as well as of the entire package. Appellants claimed that the state statute violated the Commerce Clause, the Fourteenth Amendment, and overriding federal labeling requirements under which the state label had been disapproved. A three-judge District Court was convened under 28 U.S.C. § 2281, providing for such a tribunal whenever the enforcement of a state statute is sought to be enjoined "upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute." That court dismissed on the merits in both its single-judge and three-judge capacities, and appeals were taken respectively to the Court of Appeals and (under 28 U.S.C. § 1253) to this Court.
Held: The three-judge court requirement applies to injunction suits depending directly upon a substantive provision of the Constitution, and does not apply to Supremacy Clause cases involving only federal-state statutory conflicts. Pp. 114-129.
(b) A claim that a state statute is preempted by or in conflict with a federal provision though grounded in the Supremacy Clause primarily involves the comparison of two statutes, rather than the interpretation of the Constitution; therefore, as established in Ex parte Buder, 271 U.S. 461; Ex parte Bransford, 310 U.S. 354, and Case v. Bowles, 327 U.S. 92, Supremacy Clause cases are not within the purview of § 2281. Pp. 120-122.
(c) The holding in Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U.S. 153, that a three-judge court is required if the constitutional issue is "immediately" apparent, but not if substantial statutory
construction is required, is unworkable, and that decision is, pro tanto, overruled. Pp. 124-129.
230 F.Supp. 398, appeal dismissed.
Appellants, the Swift and Armour Companies, stuff, freeze, and package turkeys which they ship to retailers throughout the country for ultimate sale to consumers. Each package is labeled with the net weight of the particular bird (including stuffing) in conformity with a governing federal statute, the Poultry Products Inspection Act of 1957, 71 Stat. 441, 21 U.S.C. §§ 451-469 (1964 ed.), and the regulations issued under its authority by the Secretary of Agriculture.1 Many of these turkeys are
sold in New York. Section 193 of New York's Agriculture and Markets Law2 has been interpreted through regulations and rulings to require that these packaged turkeys be sold with labels informing the public of the weight of the unstuffed bird, as well as of the entire package. Because the amount of stuffing varies with each bird, the State thus seeks to help purchasers ascertain just how much fowl is included in each "ready for the oven" turkey.
Swift and Armour requested permission of the Poultry Products Section of the Department of Agriculture to change their labels in order to conform with New York's requirements, but such permission was refused at the initial administrative level, and no administrative review of that refusal was sought. Swift and Armour
Pursuant to appellants' request, a three-judge district court was constituted under 28 U.S.C. § 2281 (1958 ed.), which provides for such a tribunal whenever the enforcement of a state statute is sought to be enjoined "upon the ground of the unconstitutionality of such statute." The District Court, unsure of its jurisdiction for reasons appearing below, dismissed the suit on the merits,3 acting both in a three-judge and single-judge capacity.4 Appeals were lodged in the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from the single-judge determination, and in this Court from the three-judge decision in accordance with the direct appeal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1253 (1964 ed.). The threshold question before us, the consideration of which we postponed to the merits (379 U.S. 997), is whether this Court, rather than the Court of Appeals, has jurisdiction to review the District Court determination, and this in turn depends on whether a three-judge court was required. We hold that it was not.
[86 S.Ct. 261] At the outset, we agree with the District Court that the Commerce Clause and Fourteenth Amendment
claims alleged in the complaint are too insubstantial to support the jurisdiction of a three-judge court. It has long been held that no such court is called for when the alleged constitutional claim is insubstantial, Ex parte Poresky, 290 U.S. 30; California Water Service Co. v. City of Redding, 304 U.S. 252. Since the only remaining basis put forth for enjoining enforcement of the state enactment was its asserted repugnancy to the federal statute, the District Court was quite right in concluding that the question of a three-judge court turned on the proper application of our 1962 decision in Kesler v. Department of Public Safety, 369 U.S. 153. There, we decided that, in suits to restrain the enforcement of a state statute allegedly in conflict with or in a field preempted by a federal statute, § 2281 comes into play only when the Supremacy Clause of the Federal Constitution is immediately drawn in question, but not when issues of federal or state statutory construction must first be decided, even though the Supremacy Clause may ultimately be implicated. Finding itself unable to say with assurance whether its resolution of the merits of this case involved less statutory construction than had taken place in Kesler, the District Court was left with the puzzling question how much more statutory construction than occurred in Kesler is necessary to deprive three judges of their jurisdiction.
It might suffice to dispose of the three-judge court issue for us to hold, in agreement with what the District Court indicated, 230 F.Supp. at 410, that this case involves so much more statutory construction than did Kesler that a three-judge court was inappropriate. (We would, indeed, find it difficult to say that less or no more statutory construction was involved here than in Kesler, and that, therefore, under that decision, a three-judge court was necessary.) We think, however, that such a disposition of this important jurisdictional question would be
less than satisfactory, that candor compels us to say that we find the application of the Kesler rule as elusive as did the District Court, and that we would fall short in our responsibilities if we did not accept this opportunity to take a fresh look at the problem. We believe that considerations of stare decisis should not deter us from this course. Unless inexorably commanded by statute, a procedural principle of this importance should not be kept on the books in the name of stare decisis once it is proved to be unworkable in practice; the mischievous consequences to litigants and courts alike from the perpetuation of an unworkable rule are too great. For reasons given in this opinion, we have concluded that the Kesler doctrine in this area of § 2281 is unsatisfactory, and that Kesler should be, pro tanto, overruled. The overruling of a six-to-two decision5 of such recent vintage, which was concurred in by two members of the majority in the present case,6 and the opinion in support of which was written by an acknowledged expert in the field of federal jurisdiction, demands full explication of our reasons.
The three-judge district court is a unique feature of our jurisprudence, created to alleviate a specific discontent within the federal system. The antecedent of § 2281 was a 1910 Act7 passed to assuage growing popular displeasure with [86 S.Ct. 262] the frequent grants of injunctions by federal courts against the operation of state legislation regulating railroads, and utilities, in particular.8 The
federal courts of the early nineteenth century had occasionally issued injunctions at the behest of private litigants against state officials to prevent the enforcement of state statutes,9 but such cases were rare, and generally of a character that did not offend important state policies. The advent of the Granger and labor movements in the late nineteenth century,10 and the acceleration of state social legislation, especially through the creation of regulatory bodies, met with opposition in the federal judiciary. In Chicago, M. & St.P. R. Co. v. Minnesota, 134 U.S. 418, this Court held that the setting of rates not permitting a fair return violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, established firmly the corollary that inferior federal courts could enjoin state officials from enforcing such unconstitutional state laws.
This confrontation between the uncertain contours of the Due Process Clause and developing state regulatory
legislation, arising in district courts that were generally considered unsympathetic to the policies of the States, had severe repercussions. Efforts were made in Congress to limit in various ways the...