Court Opinion

ID: 9449361
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:10:32.691586+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:48.664636
License: Public Domain

ALDRICH, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I concur in the opinion of the court, but in the light of the dissenting opinion wish to add a few comments.
No evidence was offered as to why the government requested New England to designate the mine from which it proposed to obtain its coal. I think if any inference is to be drawn it is that the government was there concerned with the quality of the product. This inference seems supported by the fact that the contract reserved to the government the right to demand a price reduction if some other mine was substituted. This is a far cry from Walsh-Healey compliance.
It is common ground that there was no evidence that the government possessed .any knowledge as to whether the Mary Frances mine met the provisions of the act. Compliance may be a complicated matter, and I do not think, in the absence of evidence, we should assume that the contracting officers of the government had such knowledge. If they did, this was a matter peculiarly appropriate for the government to prove, particularly in a case where the burden of proof was upon the government. Furthermore, this seems a very dangerous argument. Suppose, on further study, it had appeared that Mary Frances itself was a non-complying producer. Could it be said that in accepting Mary Frances the government had accepted whatever conditions were there in effect, and had made the WalshHealey Act, otherwise applicable, inapplicable? I do not think the fundamental issue involved in this case is to be determined by the naming or non-naming of some particular mine.
It may be conceded that the result in this case limits the application of the Congressional purpose to maintain wages evidenced by the act, if the act had that broad a purpose. However, I suggest this assumes the point. Congress is not a single voice, but a combination of voices. It is obvious that different Congressmen represent different interests, geographically, politically and economically, and that much legislation is a compromise between their different points of view. Individual Congressmen may accept a policy or purpose if, but only if, it has particular limits.
Putting this another way,'absent ambiguity, and the dissent points to none, I think that the scope of the act is to be defined by what it says, and not by its believed beneficial purposes. The fact that a doctor prescribes one spoonful of medicine does not mean that he would prescribe a second.
*150Judge GIGNOUX concurs in this opinion.