Court Opinion

ID: 9418836
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:40:56.690051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:14:52.118944
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Stone,
concurring.
I agree that the answer to the first question is “ No,” but I think our opinion should be confined to answering that question and that it should essay an answer to no other.
I do not doubt that the gold clause in the Government bonds, like that in the private contracts just considered, calls for the payment of value in money, measured by a stated number of gold dollars of the standard defined in the clause, Feist v. Société Intercommunale Belge d’Electricité, [1934] A. C. 161, 170-173; Serbian and Brazilian Bond Cases, P. C. I. J., series A., Nos. 20-21, pp. 32-34, 109-119. In the absence of any further exertion of governmental power, that obligation plainly could not be *359satisfied by payment of the same number of dollars, either specie or paper, measured by a gold dollar of lesser weight, regardless of their purchasing power or the state of our internal economy at the due date.
I do not understand the Government to contend that it is any the less bound by the obligation than a private individual would be, or that it is free to disregard it except in the exercise of the constitutional power “ to coin money ” and “ regulate the value thereof.” In any case, there is before us no question of default apart from the regulation "by Congress of the use of gold as currency.
While the Government’s refusal to make the stipulated payment is a measure taken in the exercise of that power, this does not disguise the fact that its action is to that extent a repudiation of its undertaking. As much as I deplore this refusal to fulfill the solemn promise of bonds of the United States, I cannot escape the conclusion, announced for the Court, that in the situation now presented, the Government, through the exercise of its sovereign power to regulate the value of money, has rendered itself immune from liability for its action. To that extent it has relieved itself of the obligation of its domestic bonds, precisely as it has relieved the obligors of private bonds in Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., decided this day, ante, p. 240.
In this posture of the case it is unnecessary, and I think undesirable, for the Court to undertake to say that the obligation of the gold clause in Government bonds is greater than in the bonds of private individuals, or that in some situation not described, and in some manner and in some measure undefined, it has imposed restrictions upon the future exercise of the power to regulate the currency. I am not persuaded that we should needlessly intimate any opinion which implies that the obligation may so operate, for example, as to interpose a serious obstacle to the adoption of measures for stabilization of *360the dollar, should Congress think it wise to accomplish that purpose by resumption of gold payments, in dollars of the present or any other gold content less than that specified in the gold clause, and by the re-establishment of a free market for gold and its free exportation.
There is no occasion now to resolve doubts, which I entertain, with respect to these questions. At present they are academic. Concededly they may be transferred wholly to the realm of speculation by the exercise of the undoubted power of the Government to withdraw the privilege of suit upon its gold clause obligations. We have just held that the Court of Claims was without power to entertain the suit in Nortz v. United States, ante, p. 317, because, regardless of the nature of the obligation of the gold certificates, there was no damage. Here it is declared that there is no damage because Congress, by the exercise of its power to regulate the currency, has made it impossible for the plaintiff to enjoy the benefits of gold payments promised by the Government. It would, seem that this would suffice to dispose of the present case, without attempting to prejudge the rights of other bondholders and of the Government under other conditions which may never occur. It will not benefit this plaintiff, to whom we deny any remedy, to be assured that he has an inviolable right to performance of the gold clause.
Moreover, if the gold clause be viewed as a gold value contract, as it is in Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., supra, it is to be noted that the Government has not prohibited the free use by the bondholder of the paper money equivalent of the gold clause obligation; it is the prohibition, by the Joint Resolution of Congress, of payment of the increased number of depreciated dollars required to make up the full equivalent, which alone bars recovery. *361In that case it would seem to be implicit in our decision that the prohibition, at least in the present situation, is itself a constitutional exercise of the power to regulate the value of money.
I therefore do not join in so much of the opinion as may be taken to suggest that the exercise of the sovereign power to borrow money on credit, which does not override the sovereign immunity from suit, may nevertheless preclude or impede the exercise of another sovereign power, to regulate the value of money; or to suggest that although there is and can be no present cause of action upon the repudiated gold clause, its obligation is nevertheless, in some manner and to some extent, not stated, superior to the power to regulate the currency which we now hold to be superior to the obligation of the bonds.
Mr. Justice McReynolds, Mr. Justice Van Devanter, Mr. Justice Sutherland, and Mr. Justice Butler dissent. See below.
In the four preceding “ Gold Clause Cases,” viz., Norman v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., and United States v. Bankers Trust Co., ante, p. 240; Nortz v. United States, ante, p. 317; and Perry v. United States, ante, p. 330, a single dissenting opinion was delivered, immediately after the handing down of the opinion in the Perry case. It is as follows: