Court Opinion

ID: 9419909
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:52:05.82045+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:42:20.501024
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
concurring.
If the question presented on the merits is reviewable judicially, in my opinion it is only for abuse of discretion *450by the Board of Governors. Not only because Congress has committed the system’s operation to their hands, but also because the system itself is a highly specialized and technical one, requiring expert and coordinated management in all its phases, I think their judgment should be conclusive upon any matter which, like this one, is open to reasonable difference of opinion. Their specialized experience gives them an advantage judges cannot possibly have, not only in dealing with the problems raised for their discretion by the system’s working, but also in ascertaining the meaning Congress had in mind in prescribing the standards by which they should administer it. Accordingly their judgment in such matters should be overturned only where there is no reasonable basis to sustain it or where they exercise it in a manner which clearly exceeds their statutory authority.
In this case I cannot say that either of these things has occurred. The Board made its determination after the required statutory hearing on notice. 48 Stat. 162, 193, 12 U. S. C. § 77. The consideration given was full and thorough, including detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law, followed by a carefully written opinion.1 The Board concluded that “primarily” in § 32 does not mean “first in volume in comparison with any other business or businesses in which it [the employer] engages,”2 but *451means rather as “a matter of primary importance,” like “primary” colors or planets or as the word is used in the phrase “the primary causes of a war.” This view it found not only supported by accepted dictionary meaning but also in conformity with Congress’ intent as established by the legislative history. In a further ground which we must take as reflecting its specialized experience, the Board stated: “To say that a securities firm ranking ninth among the leading investment bankers of the country with respect to its total participations in underwritings of bonds, and for a period ranking first, should be held to be beyond the scope of the statute is to say that Congress enacted a statute with the intention that it would apply to no one.”
I cannot say that the Board’s conclusion, in the light of those groundings, is wanting either for warrant in law or for reasonable basis in fact. The considerations stated in the Court’s opinion and in the dissenting opinion filed in the Court of Appeals, 153 F. 2d 785, 795, as well as by the Board itself, confirm this view. I think it important, not only for this case but for like ones which may arise in the future, perhaps as a result of this decision, to make clear that my concurrence in the Court’s disposition of the case is based upon the ground I have set forth, and not upon independent judicial determination of the question presented on the merits. I do not think this Court or any other should undertake to reconsider, as an independent judgment, the Board’s determination upon that question or similar ones likely to arise, if the Board was not without basis in fact for its judgment and does not clearly transgress a statutory mandate. More than has been shown here would be required to cause me to believe that the Board has exceeded its power in either respect.
Mr. Justice Frankfurter joins in this opinion.

 The opinion is not reported, pursuant to the statutory prohibition, 12 U. S. C. § 77, which is effective except in connection with proceedings for enforcement.

 Under such a view, in cases involving different facts the question would become judicial whether “primarily” means more than half of (1) the gross volume of business done; (2) the gross profit; (3) the net profit, where some but not all these factors as relating to one phase of the total activities carried on amounts to more than half the gross. Such discriminations would seem to be clearly within the Board’s power to determine in the first instance. If so, it is difficult to see why that power does not include the determination made here.