Court Opinion

ID: 9420130
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:53:05.043505+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:22.604103
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
concurring.
I had supposed that no rule of judicial administration was better settled than that the Court should restrict itself to the questions presented in a petition for certiorari. This is especially true where, as here, the petition was granted but “limited to the question as to the statute of limitations presented by the petition for the writ,” 332 U. S. 835, and the case was transferred to the summary docket. The exceptions to this rule are rare, as where the jurisdiction of this Court or of the lower courts is plainly wanting, or where a patent error in javorem vitae is to be noted. In any event, it is clear that this case could not be one of them. The exclusive jurisdiction provisions of the Emergency Price Control Act may well preclude our consideration of the validity of the “retroactive order.” But since an issue other than that pertaining to the statute of limitations has been dealt with, I would like to add a few words to Mr. Justice Jackson’s opinion, inasmuch as his immoderate restraint does not lay bare the “merits” of the controversy.
The crux of the matter is that where a landlord rents new housing accommodations but, as here, disobeys the regulatory scheme and fails to file a registration statement, if he chooses to collect the rent that he himself has *479fixed, he can do so only contingently. The Administrator may catch up with him and fix what was the proper amount from the beginning. The excess is illegal and must therefore be refunded.
There is nothing novel about a regulatory scheme whereby landlords who violate the law are denied the right to profit thereby. It has consistently been upheld by the Emergency Court of Appeals. 150 East 47th Street Corp. v. Creedon, 162 F. 2d 206; see Senderowitz v. Clark, 162 F. 2d 912, 917; cf. Easley v. Fleming, 159 F. 2d 422. When Congress provided in § 2 (g) of the Act that regulations “may contain such provisions as the Administrator deems necessary to prevent the circumvention or evasion thereof,” 56 Stat. 23, 27, 50 U. S. C. (Supp. V, 1946) § 902 (g), it plainly authorized effective administrative remedies for dealing with evasion.
If such an order is to be termed “retroactive,” it comes within the Court's recent ruling that “such retroactivity must be balanced against the mischief of producing a result which is contrary to a statutory design or to legal and equitable principles. If that mischief is greater than the ill effect of the retroactive application of a new standard, it is not the type of retroactivity which is condemned by law.” Securities & Exchange Commission v. Chenery Corp., 332 U. S. 194, 203.