Court Opinion

ID: 9418528
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:29:31.96927+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:47:27.142232
License: Public Domain

Mb. Justice Bbandeis,
concurring in part.
So far as concerns The Chastleton Corporation and Hahn, I agree that the decree should be reversed. So far as concerns the plaintiff Lake, the bill was properly dismissed for want of equity; among other reasons, because his administrative appeal from the order of the Rent Commission was pending in the Supreme Court of the District when this suit was begun, and still remains undisposed of. Prentis v. Atlantic Coast Line Co., 211 U. S. 210.
If protection of the rights of The Chastleton Corporation and Hahn required us to> pass upon the constitutionality of the District Rent Acts, I should agree, also, to the procedure directing the lower court to ascertain the facts. But, in my opinion, it does not. For (on facts hereinafter stated which appear by the bill and which were, also, admitted at the bar) the order entered by the Commission is void as to them, even if the Rent Acts are valid. To express an opinion upon the constitutionality of the acts, or to sanction the enquiry directed, would, therefore, be contrary to a long-prevailing practice of the Court.1
*550The District Rent Act of 1921 (which was in force when the proceeding before the Commission was begun, and thereafter until May 22,1922) provides, that in all “ cases the commission shall give notice personally or by registered mail and afford an opportunity to be heard to all parties in interest.” Act of October 22, 1919, c. 80, Title II, § 106, 41 Stat. 297, 300, as amended by Act of August 24, 1921; c. 91, 42 Stat. 200. The District Rent Act of 1922 (which was in force when the order of the Commission was entered) amended this clause concerning notice by adding thereto the words: “Provided, That notice given by the commission to an agent for the collection of rents due his principal shall be deemed and held to be good and sufficient notice to the principal.” Act of May 22, 1922, c. 197, § 7, 42 Stat. 543, 546.
The proceeding in which the order of the Rent Commission issued was begun January 25, 1922. Its order was entered August 7, 1922. When the proceeding before the Commission was begun, the plaintiff Lake was the owner of the property subject to mortgages theretofore executed *551and duly recorded. After the order was entered (and while that proceeding was pending on appeal in the Supreme Court of the District) the plaintiff Hahn purchased the property under the foreclosure of one of these mortgages. Thereafter, and before the institution of this suit, Hahn conveyed the property to his co-plaintiff, The Chastleton Corporation. Hahn and the corporation do not claim title under Lake. They claim title as purchasers under the foreclosure of a mortgage which antedated Lake’s purchase. Notice of the proceedings before the Commission was never served on the holder of the mortgage; and, of course, not on Hahn or on The Chastle-ton Corporation. The only notice ever served on anyone was that given, on January 25, 1922, “To the F. H. Smith Co., Agent”. — That company was then the rental agent of the property for Lake. It had no authority to represent in any way either the mortgagee or those claiming under him.
As the required notice was not served on the mortgagee, nor on those claiming under him, and as F. H. Smith Co. was not the agent of any of them, the order is necessarily void as to The Chastleton Corporation and Hahn. The doctrine of lis pendens has no application to persons so situated. Terrell v. Allison, 21 Wall. 289; Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Ry. Co. v. Long Island Loan & Trust Co., 172 U. S. 493. And Congress did not undertake to make the proceeding one in rem binding upon all the world regardless of lack of notice.

 “It [the Court] has nó jurisdiction to pronounce any statute, either of a State or of the United States, void, because irreconcilable with the Constitution, except as it is called upon to adjudge the legal rights of litigants in actual controversies. In the exercise of that *550jurisdiction, it is bound by two rules, to which it has rigidly adhered, one, never to anticipate a question of constitutional law in advance of the necessity of deciding it; the other never to formulate a rule of constitutional law broader than is required by the precise facts to which it is to be applied. These rules are safe guides to sound judgment. It is the dictate of wisdom to follow them closely and carefully.” Steamship Co. v. Emigration Commissioners, 113 U. S. 33, 39.
“Whenever, in pursuance of an honest and actual antagonistic assertion of rights by one individual against another, there is presented a question involving the validity of any act of any legislature, State or Federal, and the decision necessarily rests on the competency of the legislature to so enact, the court must, in the exercise of its solemn duties, determine whether the act be constitutional or not; but such an exercise of power is the ultimate and supreme function of courts. It is legitimate only in the last resort, and as a necessity . . .” Chicago & Grand Trunk Ry. Co. v. Wellman, 143 U. S. 339, 345. Compare Atherton Mills v. Johnston, 259 U. S. 13.