Opinion ID: 108014
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: propriety of summary judgment

Text: Although the Secretary does not press the point, the private petitioners argue that this Court should at the very least reverse for a trial on the merits or alternatively reverse with instructions to remand to the Secretary for further consideration. This is not a case where a department has acted without a formal record. In such instances a trial might be appropriate to afford the department an opportunity to develop those facts which underpin its action. When action is taken on a record the department cannot then present testimony in court to remedy the gaps in the record, any more than arguments of counsel on review can substitute for an agency's failure to make findings or give reasons. A remand to the Secretary is inappropriate in the absence of a request by the Government. Counsel for the Department has advanced no new theory for sustaining the order. Cf. SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U. S. 80, 92 (1943). Unlike Addison v. Holly Hill Co., 322 U. S. 607 (1944), we do not have before us a definition in a regulation that is necessary to give meaning and content to the administrative scheme. Nor does our decision have the effect of engrafting a definition on a particular statutory term, a function that should, in the first instance, be left to the appropriate administrative body. The 1964 order, moreover, expressly provides for severance of any provision that is found invalid. See 7 CFR § 1001.96.