Court Opinion

ID: 9419993
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:52:26.61737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:21.542905
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
dissenting.
In considering the scope of our appellate jurisdiction, great weight should be given to the strong policy of the Congress, ever since the Judiciary Act of 1891, to keep the docket of this Court within manageable proportions for the wise disposition of causes by the ultimate judicial tribunal. That consideration applies also to the few Acts, passed since the creation of the circuit courts of appeals, which allow cases to come here directly from the district court where issues of great public importance, such as the constitutionality of legislation, are at stake.
In Dahnke-Walker Co. v. Bondurant, 257 U. S. 282, this Court gave an expansive content to review, as a matter of right, of State court judgments where is drawn in question “the validity of a statute.” Our jurisdiction was held to cover review of a finding of unconstitutionality in the application of a statute to a particular situation, though the statute is otherwise left in full force and effect. While, for the reasons set forth in the dissent of Mr. Justice *109Brandéis, I have never been reconciled to the soundness of that decision, I accept it. But I do not feel obliged to extend its scope beyond its requirements.
There is an important difference between review of State court decisions and decisions of the district courts. The latter are subject to review as a matter of course by the circuit courts of appeals. They are not dependent on review by grace through certiorari, as would be comparable State decisions except for the Dahnke-Walker doctrine. I do not feel myself required by the Act of August 24, 1937, to hold that direct appeal lies to this Court whenever a district court finds unconstitutional an application of a statute to the circumstances of a particular case. It is one thing not to allow final determination of the fate of a federal statute to be delayed until a decision of a district court can go through a circuit court of appeals and then reach this Court. It is quite another thing to bring here directly from a district court every decision indicating unconstitutionality in application, no matter how restricted its incidence. Of course this does not mean that direct review of district court decisions by this Court would be available only for cases that involve “the constitutionality as a whole” of a challenged statute. The Act of 1937 refers explicitly to invalidation “in whole or in part.” Although this is made explicit in § 3 of the Act, the scope of direct review here, on the score of unconstitutionality, ought not to be different under different sections of this Act. A direct appeal is called for only when a district court strikes down, in whole or in part, that which Congress has unequivocally written. It is unwarranted when all that is in issue is whether the allowable scope of what Congress has written excludes a particular situation.
The immediate case gives point to these general observations. The incidents of a judgment are not the same *110in all the States. The effect of this Act upon judgments in the different States may thus involve consideration of the procedure of a particular State. These are hardly questions of the kind which led to the authorization, by the Act of August 24, 1937, of direct review where a district court’s decision “is against the constitutionality of any Act of Congress.” 50 Stat. 751, 752.
Nor should it be decisive of this Court’s exceptional jurisdiction on direct appeal from the district courts that the Government is the litigant. Like other litigants the Government at times attaches importance to a particular case out of all proportion to the more comprehensive factors that should control this Court’s jurisdiction. We cannot be blind to the fact that review here is sometimes pressed in response to commendable administrative earnestness which fails, however, to take fully into account the demands of this Court’s business. Moreover, it was not the interest of the Government as such which moved Congress to grant direct appeals from the district courts. By the Judiciary Act of 1925 Congress narrowly confined direct review here of district court decisions regardless of the character of the litigant, and the extension of such review by the Act of 1937 should be strictly confined.
I would dismiss this appeal and remand the case to the Circuit Court of Appeals. See Oklahoma Gas & Electric Co. v. Oklahoma Packing Co., 292 U. S. 386, 392, and Phillips v. United States, 312 U. S. 246, 254.