Court Opinion

ID: 9420131
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:53:05.04583+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:22.605639
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Douglas,
dissenting.
I think it is plain that a “refund order” is not a maximum rent order since it does more than fix a rent ceiling. I would not stretch a point to call it such, in view of the aversion our law has to the creation of retroactive liabilities. The Court finds fairness in the result because of the special circumstances of the case. Yet it recognizes a cause of action created not by Congress but by those who administer the law. That cause of action is *480written into the statute through the addition of retroactive liabilities.
The rent collected by this landlord was the maximum rent which he could at the time lawfully collect. At no time did he collect rent in excess of the ceiling then prevailing.1 Almost a year later the ceiling was reduced— from $75 a month to $45 a month — and the reduction was made retroactive by a “refund order.” The landlord is now sued by the government for treble the amount of the so-called overcharge.
The statute gives a right of action against anyone who collects more than the prescribed maximum price or rent. § 205 (e).2 No right of action to sue for overcharges prescribed by a “refund order” is contained in § 205 (e) which defines the cause of action and the statute of limitations with which we are presently concerned.3 The cause of action there described is based on a violation of a maxi*481mum rent order. The statute of limitations runs “from the date of the occurrence of the violation.” It will not do to say that the date of the violation in this situation must relate to the “refund order” because prior thereto there was no violation. Such an interpretation rewrites § 205 (e) and creates a cause of action not only for violating a rent ceiling but also for violating a “refund order.” That changes the scheme of the section. The right to obtain a return of money paid normally turns on conditions existing when it was paid. The statute of limitations usually starts to run then and not at some later time. Certainly it is novel law which makes the legality of rent payments turn on the unpredictable future action of an official who in the exercise of his discretion determines that a lower rental should have been paid. Yet the Court has to enter that field of retroactive law in order to make a “refund order” a maximum rent order for the purposes of § 205 (e).
Congress here said in effect that all payments for housing and commodities in excess of the prevailing ceiling were unlawful; and all payments at the ceiling were lawful. The Court in its construction of § 205 (e) does violence to that policy. For it expands the statutory cause of action so as to penalize those who in yesterday's transactions exacted no more than the law and regulations permitted. Any such use of retroactive law to construe § 205 (e) makes it most doubtful that Congress ever adopted the meaning now given the section. I would conclude that Congress had taken that course only if it had said so in unambiguous terms. But one who reads *482§ 205 (e) to find any reference to liabilities based on “refund orders” reads in vain. And it is only violations of the orders described in that section which give rise to the cause of action under it.
It is said, however, that no question concerning the validity of the “refund order” can be considered here because any challenge to its validity would have to go to the Emergency Court of Appeals. I do not dispute that view. See Bowles v. Willingham, 321 U. S. 503; Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414. For Congress in § 203 and § 204 of the Act provided a special administrative procedure for testing the validity of any provision of a “regulation, order, or price schedule,” a procedure the constitutionality of which we have sustained. See Lockerty v. Phillips, 319 U. S. 182; Yakus v. United States, supra. But we are not here concerned with the power of the Administrator to issue a “refund order.” Our question is different and involves only a question of law turning on the meaning of § 205 (e). What we have to decide is whether a “refund order” is a “regulation, order, Or price schedule prescribing a maximum price” within the meaning of § 205 (e). That is the first step in determining the time from which the statutory period of limitations is measured.
In short, the cause of action here at issue can be created only by the statute, not by regulations. The question is not one of validity of the regulations but of statutory interpretation; not an interpretation to determine whether the statute authorizes the regulations, but whether it authorizes the suit.

 The maximum rent for the type of housing involved here was the first rent after the effective date of the regulations, viz., $75 a month. See Rent Regulation for Housing, § 4 (e) (3), 8 F. R. 14663, 10 F. R. 3436.

 Section 205 (e) provides, so far as here material, as follows:
“If any person selling a commodity violates a regulation, order, or price schedule prescribing a máximum, price . . . the person who buys such commodity . . . may, within one year from the date of the occurrence of the violation, . . . bring an action against the seller on account of the overcharge. ... For the purposes of this section the payment or receipt of rent . . . shall be deemed the buying or selling of a commodity, as the case may be; and the word 'overcharge’ shall mean the amount by which the consideration exceeds the applicable maximum price.” (Italics added.)

 It may be that the Administrator could sue to compel compliance with the refund order under §205 (a). See Porter v. Warner Co., 328 U. S. 395. There may be other remedies arising from respondent’s failure to file a registration statement. Thus § 4 (e) of ./the Rent Regulations for Housing states: “The foregoing provisions and any refund thereunder do not affect any civil or criminal lia*481bility provided by the Act for failure to file the registration statement required by section 7.” There is no need to canvass those possibilities here as § 205 (e) supplies the only basis for petitioner’s judgment in this case.