Opinion ID: 106534
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the three-judge court issue.

Text: At the threshold in Mendoza-Martinez' case is the question whether the proceeding should have been heard by a three-judge District Court convened pursuant to 28 U. S. C. § 2282, which requires such a tribunal as a prerequisite to the granting of any interlocutory or permanent injunction restraining the enforcement, operation or execution of any Act of Congress for repugnance to the Constitution of the United States . . . . If § 2282 governs this litigation, we are once again faced with the prospect of a remand and a new trial, this time by a three-judge panel. We are, however, satisfied that the case was properly heard by a single district judge, as both parties urge. In the complaint under which the case was tried the first and second times, Mendoza-Martinez asked for no injunctive relief, and none was granted. In the amended complaint which he filed in 1960 to put in issue the question of collateral estoppel, he added a prayer asking the court to adjudge that defendants herein are enjoined and restrained henceforth from enforcing all deportation orders against him. However, it is abundantly clear from the amended trial stipulation which was entered into by the parties and approved by the judge to govern the course of the trial, that the issues were framed so as not to contemplate any injunctive relief. The first question was articulated only in terms of whether the Government was herein estopped by reason of the indictment and conviction of plaintiff for [draft evasion] . . . from denying that the plaintiff is now a national and citizen of the United States. The second question asked only for a declaration as to whether § 401 (j) was unconstitutional, either on its face or as applied to the plaintiff herein. The conclusion that no request for injunctive relief nor even any contemplation of it attended the case as it went to trial is borne out by the total lack of reference to injunctive relief in the District Court's memorandum opinion, findings of fact and conclusions of law, and judgment. See 192 F. Supp. 1. The relief granted was merely a declaration that the 1944 Amendment is unconstitutional, both on its face and as applied to the plaintiff herein, and [t]hat the plaintiff is now, and ever since the date of his birth has been, a national and citizen of the United States. Thus, despite the amendment to Mendoza-Martinez' complaint before the third trial, it is clear that neither the parties nor the judge at any relevant time regarded the action as one in which injunctive relief was material to the disposition of the case. Since no injunction restraining the enforcement of § 401 (j) was at issue, § 2282 was not in terms applicable to require the convening of a three-judge District Court. Whether an action solely for declaratory relief would under all circumstances be inappropriate for consideration by a three-judge court we need not now decide, for it is clear that in the present case the congressional policy underlying the statute was not frustrated by trial before a single judge. The legislative history of § 2282 and of its complement, § 2282, [6] requiring three judges to hear injunctive suits directed against federal and state legislation, respectively, indicates that these sections were enacted to prevent a single federal judge from being able to paralyze totally the operation of an entire regulatory scheme, either state or federal, by issuance of a broad injunctive order. Section 2281 was a means of protecting the increasing body of state legislation regulating economic enterprise from invalidation by a conventional suit in equity. . . . The crux of the business is procedural protection against an improvident state-wide doom by a federal court of a state's legislative policy. This was the aim of Congress. . . . Phillips v. United States, 312 U. S. 246, 250-251. Repeatedly emphasized during the congressional debates on § 2282 were the heavy pecuniary costs of the unforeseen and debilitating interruptions in the administration of federal law which could be wrought by a single judge's order, and the great burdens entailed in coping with harassing actions brought one after another to challenge the operation of an entire statutory scheme, wherever jurisdiction over government officials could be acquired, until a judge was ultimately found who would grant the desired injunction. 81 Cong. Rec. 479-481, 2142-2143 (1937). The present action, which in form was for declaratory relief and which in its agreed substance did not contemplate injunctive relief, involves none of the dangers to which Congress was addressing itself. The relief sought and the order entered affected an Act of Congress in a totally noncoercive fashion. There was no interdiction of the operation at large of the statute. It was declared unconstitutional, but without even an injunctive sanction against the application of the statute by the Government to Mendoza-Martinez. Pending review in the Court of Appeals and in this Court, the Government has been free to continue to apply the statute. That being the case, there is here no conflict with the purpose of Congress to provide for the convocation of a three-judge court whenever the operation of a statutory scheme may be immediately disrupted before a final judicial determination of the validity of the trial court's order can be obtained. Thus there was no reason whatever in this case to invoke the special and extraordinary procedure of a three-judge court. Compare Schneider v. Rusk, post, p. 224, decided this day.