Source: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/340/8
Timestamp: 2014-08-30 14:50:33
Document Index: 168319676

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 106', '§ 3', '§ 201', '§ 611', '§ 611', '§ 3', '§ 1346']

FOGARTY v. UNITED STATES. | LII / Legal Information Institute
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340 U.S. 8 (71 S.Ct. 5, 95 L.Ed. 10)
FOGARTY v. UNITED STATES.
Argued: Oct. 10, 1950.
Decided: Nov. 6, 1950.
[HTML] Mr. George M. Shkoler, Chicago, Ill., for petitioner.
Petitioner, as trustee in bankruptcy of Inland Waterways, Inc., brought suit against the United States in the District Court of Minnesota, Fifth Division, under the War Contract Hardship Claims Act, popularly known as the Lucas Act, adopted August 7, 1946, 60 Stat. 902, 41 U.S.C. 106 note, 41 U.S.C.A. § 106 note, to recover $328,804.42 as losses alleged to have been sustained under certain contracts with the Navy Department for the production of war supplies and materials. On motion, summary judgment was entered for the United States. 80 F.Supp. 90. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. 176 F.2d 599. The suit turns on the interpretation and meaning to be ascribed to parts of the federal statute. Because we deemed resolution of the issues important, especially in view of asserted conflicts of decision in the interpretation of the statute among other federal courts, certiorari was granted. 339 U.S. 909, 70 S.Ct. 572.
The only question decided by the Court of Appeals was that petitioner did not file with the Navy Department on or before August 14, 1945, a 'written request for relief' within the meaning of § 3 of the Lucas Act. We direct our attention to the correctness of that holding. Neither the Act nor the regulations of the President thereunder define the term. Pertinent parts of the Act are set forth in the margin.
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Congress granted to the President under § 201 of the First War Powers Act, 55 Stat. 838, 839, 50 U.S.C.App. § 611, 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix, § 611, the power to authorize Government agencies to make amendments and modifications of contracts for war supplies without regard to consideration if 'such action would facilitate the prosecution of the war'. Throughout the war, departments and agencies of the Government utilized the provisions of the Act and regulations thereunder to alleviate hardships encountered by war contractors in an economy geared to all-out war. After the termination of hostilities August 14, 1945, however, departments of the Government took different views of their powers under the Act and regulations. Some continued to exercise those powers, while others took the position that they were no longer applicable, since the war was over and contract modifications could not 'facilitate the prosecution of the war'. This resulted in a disparity of treatment of claimants for the relief of the Act whose claims had been filed but not acted upon before August 14, 1945. Whether such a contractor was to be accorded relief under the Act depended on the view the department with which he had contracted took of the Act. This situation motivated congressional action. See S. Rep. No. 1669, 79th Cong., 2d Sess.,
accompanying S. 1477, which became the Lucas Act.
Petitioner, in attempting to establish an interpretation of the Lucas Act which would allow him to maintain this suit, has placed much reliance on events which occurred in Congress subsequent to its enactment. The second session of the Eighty-first Congress passed H.R. 3436, which was vetoed by the President. 96 Cong.Rec. 8291, 8658, 9602. Thereafter, Congress passed S. 3906, which failed of enactment over another veto of the President. 96 Cong.Rec. 12911, 14652. Petitioner's argument is that these bills and their legislative history show that Congress had a different intent in passing the Lucas Act than that attributed to it by its administrators and some of the courts. If there is anything in these subsequent events at odds with our finding of the meaning of § 3, it would not supplant the contemporaneous intent of the Congress which enacted the Lucas Act. Cf. United States v. Mine Workers, 330 U.S. 258, 281282, 67 S.Ct. 677, 690, 91 L.Ed. 884.
We do not think that the documents relied on by petitioner come within the meaning of the term 'written request for relief'. Neither the counterclaim in the bankruptcy court, nor the petition for compensation for requisitioned property, nor the invoices for extras, sought relief as a matter of grace. They sought payment as a matter of right. The counterclaim demanded judgment of the bankruptcy court. The petition for requisitioned property and the invoices were legal claims for compensation under contract. As such, they constituted a basis for suit in court. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. 1346, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1346. That petitioner himself thought of them as judicially cognizable claims is evidenced by the fact that he included them in the counterclaim filed with the bankruptcy court, which obviously had no jurisdiction to award any extra-legal relief under the First War Powers Act.