Court Opinion

ID: 9419529
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:49:57.750122+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:09.335505
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Robeets :
I agree with the opinion of this court and with the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals that the Administrator was without power (if “area of production” is to have any sensible meaning) to exclude from the area and from the operation of the exemption workers in a processing plant clearly within the area on the ground that a certain number of employes worked in the plant. If Congress, when it said that the area of production should be defined by the Administrator, meant that that official should have a roving commission to create exemptions from the Act, the entire provision must fall as an unconstitutional attempt to delegate legislative power. We should never, however, construe an Act in a sense which would render it unconstitutional if a different and permissible construction will save it.
The legislative history makes it clear enough that Congress wished to exempt plants processing agricultural commodities in the locality of the farms which produced the commodities. Realizing that the ascertainment of the facts in particular cases would be essential to definition or *624delimitation of the area served, Congress, by the phrase “as defined by the Administrator,” meant to permit him to draw lines in delimitation of areas appropriately to correspond to the facts. I construe the word “define,” in this context, to mean “ascertain the facts and announce the result of such ascertainment.” The opinions of the court below elaborate this view.
I think the Administrator’s order may well be allowed to stand with the illegal and unauthorized feature of it deleted. This is what the Circuit Court of Appeals decided and I believe it was right. Other features of the order were not, and are not, attacked and if, for the future, the Administrator desires, in other aspects, to amend his order, there is nothing to prevent. This would lead to affirmance of the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals and, if I could make my vote effective to that end, I should vote for affirmance. The other members of the court, however, are for reversal, but are divided on the question whether the judgment of the District Court should be affirmed or the case held in that court pending amendment of the order by the Administrator. Entertaining the views which I do, I cannot vote to affirm the judgment of the District Court, but that will be the effect of my action if I vote simply to reverse the judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals. While I think none of the authorities' cited in the opinion of Me. Justice Frankfurter justify the procedure there outlined, I am constrained to vote in accordance with his opinion.
I am clear that, if the Administrator is to be permitted to amend his order, or to enter a new order effective from the date of the one under attack, he may not resort to gerrymandering or to any other device to accomplish by indirection what the decision holds he cannot do directly. I personally believe the scope of his discretion is more limited than some of my colleagues think and I do not wish my concurrence in the remand of the case to the *625District Court, to be there held pending the promulgation of an amended order, or a new order, to be taken as approving in advance the views expressed as to the extent of the Administrator’s discretion.