Court Opinion

ID: 9465017
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:33:32.677618+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:56.051235
License: Public Domain

JOHN R. BROWN, Chief Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result and in the reasoning of the opinion. I cannot, however, refrain from pointing out that, paraphrasing the now famous quip of Judge Henry Friendly of the Second Circuit, our problem is to determine what Congress would think on an issue about which it has not thought.1 We offer an extension to fit this case: had Congress thought, it would have told us what it thought.
To those who think that the judiciary is too quick to become too deeply involved in legislative solutions to the day’s problems, and who believe that courts should show a *464greater restraint or, to adopt a moralistic tone, a “decent respect” for other decision-making bodies, this case is Exhibit A for a different view of how responsibility is divided. This exhibit supports the strongly held suspicion that too often the legislative view is: if our work is deficient, the courts will patch it up.
If our juryrig2 patchwork efforts are deficient, the fault does not lie at our feet.

. See Nolan v. Transocean Air Lines, 2 Cir., 1960, 276 F.2d 280, 281, rev’d, 365 U.S. 293, 81 S.Ct. 555, 5 L.Ed.2d 571, on remand, 2 Cir., 290 F.2d 904. Those of us who have borrowed this idea in the past hope that we have given a sufficient acknowledgment. See Wirth Ltd. v. S/S Acadia Forest, 5 Cir., 1976, 537 F.2d 1272, 1276; Hopkins v. Lockheed Aircraft Corp., 5 Cir., 1968, 394 F.2d 656, 657; Page v. St. Louis Southwestern Ry. Co., 5 Cir., 1965, 349 F.2d 820, 823.

. See Little v. Green, 5 Cir., 1970, 428 F.2d 1061, 1067. In this case the “jury” is not the court’s factfinder. Rather, it is the ship’s rudder, without which she is helpless.
1. 31 U.S.C. § 1221 et seq.
2. S.Rep.No. 92-1050, 92d Cong., 2d Sess., reprinted in 1972 U.S.Code Cong, and Admin. News, p. 3874.
Of course, the phrase no strings can be read in a narrow manner. For such a reading see Kushner and Werner, Revenue Sharing and Relocation: The Administrative Dilemma of Ostensibly Conflicting Congressional Directives, 5 Ecology L.Q. 433, 438-442. Interestingly, the plaintiffs brief in this case is an edited version of this law review article.