Court Opinion

ID: 9419822
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:38.703604+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:20.774231
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Black,
dissenting.
The judgment which the Court just rendered permits these petitioners and others to keep profits obtained from sales made at inflationary prices expressly prohibited by Maximum Price Regulation No. 30. That Regulation establishes dollar and cent ceiling prices for thirty-two grades of wastepaper defined by the Price Administrator. It is the type of regulation, of which there have been many, which controls prices by first standardizing or grouping similar commodities, and then fixing one and *57the same maximum price for each of the commodities in a particular classification. On July 16, 1943, long after Regulation No. 30 was promulgated and fully in force, Congress added the Taft Amendment (§ 2 (j)) to the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942. The Court holds that Congress intended by this Amendment to invalidate automatically Price Regulation No. 30, and all the numerous regulations like it, until such time as the Price Administrator should find it possible, amidst all his pressing duties, to investigate and make determinations, formally expressed in writing, that only by standardizing or grouping certain commodities could price control over them be successfully enforced. Since the task of rechecking all past regulations which contained standardization provisions was very great, the Administrator did not find time to reach the Regulation here involved until two months after the Amendment’s enactment. The Court holds that during this interval the public had no protection whatever from inflationary prices prohibited by this Regulation. In my opinion this holding finds support neither in the Section’s language nor its legislative history.
When the sponsor of the Taft Amendment offered it on the Senate floor his statement clearly indicated that it grew out of cooperative effort between the legislators and the Price Administrator, who certainly would not be interested in throwing a monkey wrench into O. P. A.’s enforcement of the existing regulations. Referring to provisions of the Act which his Amendment was intended to clarify, Senator Taft said: “Price Administrator Brown came before the committee and urged that it would seriously hamper his price regulations in a number of trades, regulations for which had already been issued, to many of which there was no objection. He submitted another *58form of amendment, carrying out the same purpose, but making it perfectly clear that it would not interfere with those regulations, which are proper.” Cong. Rec. July 6, 1943, Yol. 89, p. 7251.
In spite of this clear declaration on the part of Senator Taft of his intention to save “proper” existing regulations, the Court now gives the Taft Price Administrator Amendment a meaning which does “interfere with those regulations.” It not only interferes with them; it completely destroys their effectiveness for an indefinite interval of time. These petitioners and others are wholly freed from any possible penalty for deliberate inflationary overcharges, forbidden by Congress, during the period between the passage of the Amendment and the Administrator’s publication of his determinations. That the Regulation here involved was a “proper” regulation on the day the Taft Amendment was passed is conceded. That its standardization provisions were at all times necessary to the effective enforcement of the Act is shown both by the Administrator’s later findings and by his original promulgation. Consequently, it is this Court, and not the Congress, which must take the responsibility for permitting petitioners to violate the price regulation with impunity.
Furthermore, the Taft Amendment’s language offers no support for the Court’s decision. For by its terms it neither repeals nor renders unenforceable or ineffective valid outstanding regulations which standardize commodities. And in addition to what has already been pointed out, the prevailing circumstances at the time of its enactment make it highly improbable that Congress intended such a result. At the time the Amendment was enacted the threat of inflation was the greatest since the outbreak of the war. Just in April the President had thought it necessary to issue his well-known “Hold-the-Line Order” *59in order to tighten controls designed to stem the inflationary trend. Purchasing power was very great and consumer goods had become extremely scarce. Had Congress really intended to protect the public against inflation, as its legislation shows it did, it would not have chosen this time for relaxing government controls. The giving of free reign to inflationary pressure was likely to endanger seriously our economy and to bring great hardship to many individuals. I cannot, without a clear declaration to that effect with respect to any part of our economy, impute to Congress an intent to let inflation run riot during such critical times. I cannot conclude, therefore, as the opinion of the Court necessarily does, that Congress intended to suspend all Maximum Price Regulations containing standardization provisions until the Price Administrator reviewed them.
What then was the purpose of Congress in enacting the Taft Amendment? The Managers on the part of the House thus stated the Section’s purpose in the Conference Report on the Amendment: It “is to meet the objection that the Price Administrator has exceeded the limitations expressed in section 2 (h) of . . . [the 1942 Price Control Act] in issuing certain regulations already promulgated.” (Italics supplied.) Section 2 (h) provides: “The powers granted . . . shall not be used or made to operate to compel changes in the business practices, cost practices or methods, or means or aids to distribution, established in any industry, except to prevent circumvention or evasion of any regulation, order, price schedule, or requirement under this Act.” (Italics supplied.) As the Conference Report indicates, the Taft Amendment actually added little new, if anything at all, to the requirements already contained in § 2 (h). It was merely an explanation and elaboration of one phase of the requirements of § 2 (h). *60Any regulation, including the one here held invalid, that was promulgated when § 2 (h) was in effect had to meet its requirements. As later explained by the Taft Amendment, the requirements of § 2 (h) which permitted the Administrator to require changed business practices to prevent “circumvention or evasion” included, in the case of regulations containing new standardization provisions, a determination that there was no practical alternative to effective price control. All standardization provisions, including the one here held invalid, in order to be valid under the old § 2 (h) had to be based on such a determination. The Taft Amendment was not, as the Court now holds, a declaration by Congress that all past standardization provisions had not been based on such a determination and that they were therefore invalid. Here the Regulation in question was promulgated while § 2 (h) was in full force and effect. Not only did petitioners fail to show that the Regulation was not based on the determination required by § 2 (h) as explained by the Taft Amendment, but the Administrator, after the Amendment was enacted, and before any proceedings were brought against petitioners, double checked the Regulation to make sure that it was based on the determination required. It is not denied, and apparently cannot be denied, that it was absolutely necessary for the Administrator to order these changed standardization practices in order to prevent circumvention or evasion. In my opinion, therefore, the wastepaper provisions of Maximum Price Regulation No. 30 were valid at all times, since they met the requirements of § 2 (h) as explained by § 2 (j). I would affirm the judgment below, which dismissed the complaint.
Mr. Justice Douglas and Mr. Justice Murphy join in this dissent.