Court Opinion

ID: 9419846
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:51:47.507789+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:28.322164
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
dissenting.
In the Emergency Price Control legislation Congress was as much concerned with remedies as with substantive *404prohibitions.1 It knew that effectiveness of the latter depended altogether upon the scheme for enforcement. Accordingly, both in the original Act2 and in later amendments,3 it covered the matter of remedies in the greatest detail and precision. Those provisions were both jurisdictional and procedural. The general scheme was to confine as narrowly as the Constitution allows the rights of regulated persons to challenge provisions of the Act and regulations; and at the same time to create broad powers for enforcement, by various civil and criminal sanctions. Yakus v. United States, 321 U. S. 414, dissenting opinion, 463. Congress did not take chances, in either respect, with inference or construction. It is not excessive to say that perhaps no other legislation in our history has equalled the Price Control Act in the wealth, detail, precision and completeness of its jurisdictional, procedural and remedial provisions. Yakus v. United States, supra.
The scheme of enforcement was highly integrated, with the parts precisely tooled and minutely geared. Legal, equitable and criminal sanctions were included. Injured persons’ remedies were dovetailed with and guarded against overlapping those given the Administrator. He can sue for damages and penalties, after the injured party has failed to do so in the time allowed;4 to enjoin viola*405tion or secure an order for compliance, with temporary and permanent relief;5 cause institution of criminal proceedings; 6 and require licensing of dealers with power to suspend the license and thus drive out of business.7 This powerful battery of weapons does not call for reinforcement with armor not provided in the Act. It was equal to all tasks of enforcement which conceivably could arise.
Congress could not have been ignorant of the remedy of restitution. It knew how to give remedies it wished to confer. There was no need to add this one. Nor do I think it did so. It did not give it expressly. I do not think “other order” in the context of § 205 (a) includes it. For to have conferred it would have put the statutory scheme out of joint.
*406Section 205 (e) gives the overcharged person his remedy, for damages with penalty, for a limited time. Thereafter the exclusive right to sue is the Administrator’s, and what he recovers goes into the Federal Treasury, not to the overcharged person. This includes the amount of the overcharge, which is sued for here. These provisions taken together are a statute of limitations on the private right of recovery. Once the time goes by, it is cut off and the Government’s right takes its place, in vindication of the public interest.8
Restitution, as here sought, is inconsistent with both rights. It contemplates return of the unjustly taken enrichment to him from whom it was taken. It is that right the Administrator now seeks to assert. But he does so, I think, in the teeth of the statute. What he recovers is what the Act makes part of a sum it says shall be paid into the Treasury whenever recovered by the Administrator; or into the overcharged person’s pocket when recovered by him. And these are mutually exclusive, not alternative, rights of recovery. If the Administrator pays over to the tenants what he recovers in this suit, he will be paying them money which the Act says shall go into the Treasury.9 Their time for suit has passed and with it their right *407to recover these amounts. Whether or not the Administrator can sue for these amounts, on behalf of the Government, foregoing the penalties, we are not asked to decide. But we are asked, in effect, to decide that he can take money the Act says shall go into the Treasury and *408give it to persons whose right to recover it the Act has cut off.
I think the remedy now sought is inconsistent with the remedies expressly given by the statute and contrary to the substantive rights it creates. I think too this is why Congress failed to provide for restitution, indeed cut off that remedy.
This does not imply any restriction upon the creative resources of a court of equity. When Congress is silent in formulating remedies for rights which it has created, courts of equity are free to use these creative resources. But where Congress is explicit in the remedies it affords, and especially where Congress after it has given limited remedies enlarges the scope of such remedies but particularizes them so far as remedies for overcharges are afforded, even courts of equity may not grant relief in disregard of the remedies specifically defined by Congress.
Mr. Justice Reed and Mr. Justice Frankfurter join in this opinion.

 See H. Rep. No. 1409, 77th Cong., 1st Sess., 12-13; S. Rep. No. 931, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 8-9, 25-28; H. Rep. No. 1658, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., 26-27. “Price control which cannot be made effective is at least as bad as no price control at all. It will not stop inflation, and enables those who defy regulation to profit at the expense of the buyers and sellers who unselfishly cooperate in the interests of the emergency.” S. Rep. No. 931, supra, p. 8.

 § 205, 56 Stat. 23, 33-35.

 58 Stat. 632, 640-641, amending subsections (c), (e), and (f) of § 205 as it was in the original Act and adding subsection (g).

 § 205 (e), 50 U. S. C. § 925 (e). See note 9.

 § 205 (a): “Whenever in the judgment of the Administrator any person has engaged or is about to engage in any acts or practices which constitute or will constitute a violation of any provision of section 4 of this Act, he may make application to the appropriate court for an order enjoining such acts or practices, or for an order enforcing compliance with such provision, and upon a showing by the Administrator that such person has engaged or is about to engage in any such acts or practices a permanent or temporary injunction, restraining order, or other order shall be granted without bond.” 50U.S.C. §925 (a).

 § 205 (b): “Any person who willfully violates any provision of section 4 of this Act, and any person who makes any statement or entry false in any material respect in any document or report required to be kept or filed under section 2 or section 202, shall, upon conviction thereof, be subject to a fine of not more than $5,000, or to imprisonment for not more than two years in the case of a violation of section 4 (c) and for not more than one year in all other cases, or to both such fine and imprisonment. Whenever the Administrator has reason to believe that any person is liable to punishment under this subsection, he may certify the facts to the Attorney General, who may, in his discretion, cause appropriate proceedings to be brought.” 50 U. S. C. § 925 (b). § 205 (c), 50 U. S. C. § 925 (c). See Kraus & Bros. v. United States, 327 U. S. 614, 620, note 4.

 § 205 (f), 50 ü. S. C. § 925 (f).

 Under § 205 (e) in the original Act, 56 Stat. 34, the Administrator was entitled to bring a suit for damages and penalties only when the buyer was not entitled to bring such an action. See, e. g., Bowles v. Glick Bros. Lumber Co., 146 F. 2d 566. The Act was subsequently amended to provide, as set out in the text, that the Administrator could bring a suit for damages and penalties also when the injured party had not brought such an action within thirty days from the date of the occurrence of the violation. 58 Stat. 640. See note 9. The suit at bar was brought before the passage of the amendment, but that fact is of no significance, since § 205 (e), whether taken in its original or amended form, is inconsistent with the remedy of restitution sought by the Government.

 § 205 (e): “If any person selling a commodity violates a regulation, order, or price schedule prescribing a maximum price or maximum *407prices, the person who buys such commodity for use or consumption other than in the course of trade or business may, within one year from the date of the occurrence of the violation, except as hereinafter provided, bring an action against the seller on account of the overcharge. In such action, the seller shall be liable for reasonable attorney’s fees and costs as determined by the court, plus whichever of the following sums is the greater: (1) Such amount not more than three times the amount of the overcharge, or the overcharges, upon which the action is based as the court in its discretion may determine, or (2) an amount not less than $25 nor more than $50, as the court in its discretion may determine: Provided, however, That such amount shall be the amount of the overcharge or overcharges or $25, whichever is greater, if the defendant proves that the violation of the regulation, order, or price schedule in question was neither wilfull [sic] nor the result of failure to take practicable precautions against the occurrence of the violation. For the purposes of this section the payment or receipt of rent for defense-area housing accommodations 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. If any person selling a commodity violates a regulation, order, or price schedule prescribing a maximum price or maximum prices, and the buyer either fails to institute an action under this subsection within thirty days from the date of the occurrence of the violation or is not entitled for any reason to bring the action, the Administrator may institute such action on behalf of the United States within such one-year period. If such action is instituted by the Administrator, the buyer shall thereafter be barred from bringing an action for the same violation or violations. Any action under this subsection by either the buyer or the Administrator, as the case may be, may be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction. A judgment in an action for damages under this subsection shall be a bar to the recovery under this subsection of any damages in any other action against the same seller on account of sales made to the same purchaser prior to the institution of the action in which such judgment was rendered.” 50 U. S. C. § 925 (e). (Emphasis added.)