Court Opinion

ID: 9638959
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:59:51.588639+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:10.934592
License: Public Domain

JAMES ALGER FEE, District Judge
(concurring).
Concurrence in the foregoing opinion is absolute as to the result and as to the approach up to the point where it seems improperly to bind the plaintiff to accept the compensation tendered by the orders. This point need not be here settled.
Determination of a cause should not be based on constitutional grounds unless this course is unavoidable. Particularly, constitutional validity of a statute as a whole should not be considered where whatever vice there may be affects only the severable clause, “taking into account the conditions of wartime production.”
The preemption of the position of the licensee as a property right defined in the *103Royalty Adjustment Act was valid. The expropriation of the status of' licensee by virtue of orders W-9 and N-7 was and is an absolute defense for Federal Laboratories, Inc. There is a provision for the payment of some compensation to the patentee licensor. The sole problem presented is whether the amount of compensation is so limited by the clause in question that it can be no longer described as “just compensation.” But that controversy is not within our competence. A valid provision leaves the amount of compensation to be fixed by the Court of Claims. If that Court, in accordance with or in disregard of the questioned clause, grant “just compensation,” no constitutional right will have been infringed. Justice can be done to defendant by leaving the amount to be so settled, rather than by making final determination here. We need not go to the extent of needlessly prejudicing the interests of plaintiff and others similarly situated by holding this clause as well as the balance-of the Act constitutionally founded and the recovery administratively determined before it is known what the Court of Claims, if not so shackled by our decision, would allow. On the firm ground that the seizure constitutes a defense in this case, I would stop and would not, as do the majority, plunge into the maelstrom of controversy about war powers of the executive.