Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/99852/united-states-vs-american-foreign-s-s-corp
Timestamp: 2017-07-28 05:11:24
Document Index: 721661109

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 371', '§ 46', '§ 1735', '§ 745', '§ 371', '§ 43', '§ 294', '§ 7460', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 46', '§ 371', '§ 46']

United States Vs American Foreign S S Corp - Citation 99852 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize United States Vs. American-foreign S.S. Corp. - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/99852CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnJun-20-1960Case Number363 U.S. 685AppellantUnited StatesRespondentAmerican-foreign S.S. Corp.Excerpt:.....371(b). [
] almost five months later, on july 28, 1958, the court issued its en banc decision. circuit judges hincks and moore and retired circuit judge medina joined an opinion ordering the earlier three-judge decision withdrawn and remanding the causes to the district court, 265 f.2d 136, 144. judges clark and waterman dissented. [
] in his dissenting opinion, judge clark expressed doubt as to a retired judge's eligibility to participate in an en banc decision. 265 f.2d 136, 153.
"[s]ince judge..... Judgment:
United States v. American-Foreign S.S. Corp. - 363 U.S. 685 (1960)
A circuit judge who has retired under 28 U.S.C. § 371(b) is not eligible to participate in the decision of a case on rehearing en banc under 28 U.S.C. § 46(c), which provides that such a proceeding shall be "heard and determined" by a court consisting of all "active circuit judges" of the circuit. Pp.
This litigation arose when the respondents, who had chartered ships from the Government under the Merchant Ship Sales Act, 50 U.S.C.Appendix, § 1735
sued the Government in the District Court for the Southern District of New York to recover amounts of allegedly excessive charter hire which had been assessed by the Maritime Commission. The Government moved to dismiss the libels on the ground that the claims were barred by the two-year limitation period prescribed by the Suits in Admiralty Act, 46 U.S.C. § 745. The libels were dismissed in the District Court on the authority of the Second Circuit decisions in
Sword Line, Inc. v. United States,
228 F.2d 344, 230 F.2d 75,
affirmed as to admiralty jurisdiction,
351 U.S. 976, and
American Eastern Corp. v. United States,
231 F.2d 664. [
The District Court's decisions were thereafter affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. That court, consisting of Circuit Judges Medina and Hincks and retired District Judge Leibell, held that the issues were controlled by the earlier
decisions. The court's opinion stated, however, that,
"[i]f the subject matter of these appeals were
we are by no means sure that our dispositions would coincide with those made by the majority opinion in
American Eastern.
However, we will not overrule these recent decisions of other panels of the court."
28 U.S.C. § 371(b). [
in the hearing, rehearing, or determination of a case as a member of a conventional three-judge Court of Appeals. Such participation is governed by different statutory provisions. The Judicial Code explicitly provides that "judges designated or assigned" shall be "competent to sit as judges" of such a court. 28 U.S.C. § 43(b). Other provisions of the Code spell out in detail the system under which designations and assignments of retired judges are to be made. 28 U.S.C. §§ 294, 295, 296. [
Moreover, there is not involved here any issue as to the procedure to be followed by a Court of Appeals in determining whether a hearing or rehearing en banc is to be ordered. In the
Western Pacific Railroad Case, Western Pac. R. Corp. v. Western Pac. R. Co.,
, it was held that this question is largely to be left to intramural determination by each of the Courts of Appeals. "The court is left free to devise its own administrative machinery to provide the means whereby a majority may order such a hearing." 345 U.S. at
anything else than what they say. As the Reviser's Note indicates, and as this Court pointed out in the
Western Pacific Railroad Case,
-251, where the legislative history was fully reviewed, the statutory provision was added to the Judicial Code in 1948 simply as a
"legislative ratification of
Textile Mills Securities Corp. v. Commissioner,
314 U. S. 326
(1941) -- a decision which went no further than to sustain the power of a Court of Appeals to order a hearing en banc. [
314 U. S. 334
Persuasive arguments could be advanced that an exception should be made to permit a retired circuit judge to participate in en banc determination of cases where, as here, he took part in the original three-judge hearing, or where, as here, he had not yet retired when the en banc hearing was originally ordered. Indeed, the Judicial Conference of the United States has approved suggested legislative changes that would provide such an exception, and a bill to amend the statute has been introduced in the Congress. [
] But this only serves to emphasize that, if the
We conclude for these reasons that, under existing legislation, a retired circuit judge is without power to participate in an en banc Court of Appeals determination, and accordingly that the judgment must be set aside.
American Construction Co. v. Jacksonville, T. & K.W. R. Co.,
148 U. S. 387
Frad v. Kelly,
302 U. S. 312
302 U. S. 316
opinion itself carefully distinguished between circuit judges in active service and those who have retired. 314 U.S. at
314 U. S. 327
The "heard and determined" clause on which the Court relies appears in a sentence whose purposes were simply to codify the doctrine that a Court of Appeals had power to sit en banc,
, while making clear that the usual procedure was to be decision by a three-judge panel. [
] It is not an unknown phenomenon in federal adjudication that a case, though heard by less than the entire tribunal, may be decided according to the majority vote of all.
I.R.C., § 7460;
2 Casey, Federal Tax Practice 274-280. The traditional term "heard and determined," in my view was designed to do no more than reflect the obvious inappropriateness of such a procedure to the deliberations of the Court of Appeals. There is no necessity for finding in that term, in light of the context in which it appears, any Congressional direction regarding the constitution of an en banc court.
The language and context, then, of § 46(c) are given full effect by holding, as I would, that the statute requires no more than that the members of an en banc court be in active status at the time the case is argued or submitted. Such a construction, for a court which decided the
should not be difficult to reach. The issue there was whether the predecessor of § 46(c), conferring appellate jurisdiction on circuit courts consisting of three judges, prevented adjudication by a circuit court composed of five judges, constituting all the active circuit judges of the particular circuit there involved. In holding that it did not, the Court, making a wise "sacrifice of literalness for common sense," 314 U.S. at
, found no difficulty in rising above the arithmetic of the predecessor of § 46(c) so as to achieve a sensible result. Still less should there be difficulty here in accommodating § 46(c) to the needs of sound judicial administration. So construed, the statute was complied with here. [
But even were I to accept the Court's premises -- a reading into the en banc procedure of a requirement that only active judges may participate in the "determination" of such cases, and a view of § 46(c) as expressing a Congressional policy against participation by retired judges in decisions setting the "major doctrinal trends" of a court -- I could not agree that they justify this decision. Choice of the date of announcement of a decision as the date of "determination" of the cause may provide a touchstone which a disappointed litigant searching for grounds for reversal can easily apply. However, it seems a singularly infelicitous construction of this particular legislative language. [
process of adjudication still remain to be done, must withdraw from further participation. But where such is not the case, the statute should not be thought to require a precipitous termination of judicial affairs and the undoing of adjudications properly made. In the nature of things, the effectuation of such a policy should be left with the various Courts of Appeals, if indeed not to the conscience and good taste of the particular circuit judge concerned, as in most instances of individual disqualification for other reasons.
It is not a ground for objection that such a construction would provide no test which an outsider, whether litigant or reviewing court, could apply. [
] As this Court has observed: "In our view, § 46(c) is not addressed to litigants. It is addressed to the Court of Appeals."
. On its view of the statute, the Court should not have hesitated to adopt that construction of the "heard and determined" clause which most faithfully reflects its purpose merely because those with whom the statute is not concerned are thereby hampered in voicing their own objections.
lawsuit, petitioner and not respondents would have prevailed on the appeal, since that would have resulted in the affirmance, by an equally divided Court of Appeals, of the District Court's judgment in favor of the Government. Of course, to a litigant, there is no greater injury than to lose a case, but I have difficulty understanding just what legal error has been committed against petitioner such as to warrant vacation by this Court of the judgment below, thus giving the Government an opportunity to retrieve its original loss in the en banc Court of Appeals. Clearly, Judge Medina was not a mere interloper or a usurper. He was, and is, a circuit judge of the United States, bearing a commission signed by the President. Abstractions about "competence" only becloud the matter. All that has happened is that Judge Medina has exercised the right conferred by Congress (28 U.S.C. § 371(b)) to retire from active service. Nothing in that action, or in what the Court has said concerning the scope of § 46(c), renders the judgment of the court below vulnerable to attack. The cases cited by the Court dealt with disqualifications based on policy grounds the effectuation of which called for a vacation of the judgments rendered there. [
] No reason has been given why that is so here.
"This section preserves the interpretation established by the
case, but provides in subsection (c) that cases shall be heard by a court of not more than three judges unless the court has provided for hearing in banc. This provision continues the tradition of a three-judge appellate court, and makes the decision of a division the decision of the court unless rehearing in banc is ordered. It makes judges available for other assignments, and permits a rotation of judges in such manner as to give to each a maximum of time for the preparation of opinions."
In construing a statute far more amenable to a technical approach, we recently rejected an analogous construction of the word "determined."
361 U. S. 307
, a motion for discharge from probation was entertained and granted by a judge not of the district where sentence had been imposed. The evident purpose of the statute limiting consideration of such matters to judges of the sentencing court was to permit those judges to develop an integrated policy governing probation.
302 U. S. 318
. To give effect to that policy, the order of discharge was vacated. The dictum in
, concerned a violation by a judge of the requirement that he not sit on an appeal from a judgment or order which he had entered. It hardly needs elucidation to recognize that disregard of such a policy infects the judgment rendered.