Court Opinion

ID: 9419263
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:48:10.160097+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:16.888454
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Frankfurter,
dissenting:
In the spring of 1938 the Government instituted criminal proceedings against the three leading automobile manufacturers, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors. For pres*565ent purposes, Ford may be disregarded. Each indictment charged violation of the Sherman Law arising out of the manufacturer’s affiliation with a finance company and its employment of certain trade practices. Chrysler was prepared to consent to a decree prohibiting it from affiliation with any finance company, in addition to its acceptance of restraints against alleged illegal trade practices, provided, however, that the Government succeeded in obtaining similar relief against General Motors. The problem before the negotiators of the consent decree was, therefore, that of determining how long Chrysler should remain subject to the restraints imposed by the decree while General Motors, contesting the claims of the Government, refused to come to terms with it and put it to its law. As the Government recognizes in its brief here, Chrysler was “entitled to protection against undue delay in the prosecution of the proceedings against General Motors.” With respect to the prohibition against affiliation, the problem was solved by providing in paragraph 12 that if the Government should not have obtained a final decree against General Motors by January 1, 1941, requiring General Motors to divest itself of all interest in its affiliated finance company, the prohibition against Chrysler would cease. This was made an “express condition” notwithstanding any other provisions in the decree.1 Obviously, it was an essential feature of the consent *566decree against Chrysler that the prohibition of affiliation with the finance company should result in this great competitive disadvantage only long enough to enable the Government to press its claim against General Motors to successful conclusion with all reasonable speed. The parties might have refrained from fixing any definite period, leaving the matter wholly for determination in the future and by undefined standards of reasonableness. Instead, the Government chose to specify with particularity the length of the period—more than two years—in which Chrysler would be required to bear competitive hardships resulting *567from the lack of the same restraints upon General Motors.
Considering the scope and nature of the decree, the interests, both public and private, with which it was dealing, and its technical draftsmanship, there can be no doubt that the precise limits of paragraph 12 were not casually or carelessly defined. Of course, the District Court had the power to modify the consent decree in order to effectuate its basic purposes. The fact that the decree embodied the agreement of the parties no more limited the power of the court than if it had been a contested decree. Swift & Co. v. United States, 276 U. S. 311; United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U. S. 106, 114; United States v. International Harvester Co., 274 U. S. 693. The decree itself contains an express recognition of the court’s power of modification, but such a reservation plainly added nothing to the decree and subtracted nothing from the significance of terms made an express condition of the imposed restraint. The burden was still, as it always is-, on the moving party— and here it was the Government—to show that circumstances justified a change in such terms. In fact, on December 17, 1940, within three weeks of the expiration of the restraint against Chrysler, the Government sought for an extension of that restraint for another year upon the grounds that the time “was by mistake of the parties underestimated.” The extension was opposed, but granted by the District Court. An appeal was brought here but was dismissed on December 8,1941, “for want of a quorum of Justices qualified to sit.” Chrysler Corporation v. United States, 314 U. S. 583. A week later, the present proceedings were begun for a further extension. The effect of the modification sought by the Government and granted by the court below was to extend until January 1, 1943, the restrictions upon Chrysler’s freedom of action which were not imposed upon its principal rival.
*568In order to justify a modification having such drastic business consequences, it was surely incumbent upon the Government to show that it had proceeded with all deliberate speed against General Motors. The record reveals that no such showing was made. The history of the litigation against General Motors proves that it could not have been made. Although the consent decree against Chrysler was entered on November 15, 1938, the trial in the criminal action against General Motors was not begun until October 9, 1939. This trial resulted in a conviction against General Motors on November 17,1939. Since the trial judge did not instruct the jury that affiliation as such was unlawful, and indeed the contrary, the criminal proceeding could no longer be claimed to control the validity of the affiliation prohibited by paragraph 12 of the Chrysler decree. Consequently, it is irrelevant that the criminal proceedings against General Motors were not finally concluded until this Court denied certiorari on October 13, 1941. But, in any event, the contingencies of review of a criminal conviction do not justify holding in abeyance an equity suit, even though it concerns a related issue, when the determination of that equity suit within a time certain, to wit, January 1,1941, explicitly defined the duration of the restraint imposed upon Chrysler. The appeal of the criminal conviction against General Motors was at last disposed of in the Circuit Court of Appeals on May 1,1941. 121F. 2d 376. But even then the Government did nothing to press the equity suit, indeed it promoted its further delay.
It was not until October 4, 1940, that the Government brought a civil suit in equity against General Motors. This was almost two years after the entry of the decree against Chrysler, and, perhaps more important, less than three months before the date upon which the bar against *569Chrysler was to be lifted. Here again the record contains nothing to explain this period of inacjtion, when, by the express terms of the decree, the duty of action was laid upon the Government and the result of such action was of obvious business importance to the status of Chrysler under its decree. Nor does the record show that the Government undertook to prevent any untoward delays in the determination of the General Motors civil suit. On the contrary, no less than six times did the Government agree to extensions of the time within which General Motors should plead. On October 26, 1940, the Government acquiesced in an extension to January 20, 1941; on January 16,1941, in an extension to January 27, 1941; on January 24, 1941, in an extension of more than three months, to May 1, 1941; on April 21, 1941, in a further extension to June 15, 1941; and on June 13,1941, in an additional extension to June 21, 1941. On that date, the Government filed an amended complaint, and on June 28,1941, it agreed to a further extension to July 15,1941. On the latter date, General Motors requested the court that it be given a further extension; the request recited the Government’s opposition to the motion because of its effect upon the Chrysler decree. The court nevertheless granted General Motors an indefinite extension. On November 29, 1941, the Government for the first time moved that General Motors be required to file an answer or other pleading. In response to this motion, the court ordered that General Motors file a pleading by January 15,1942.
This is the background of fact in the light of which the District Court was required to judge whether the Government was equitably entitled to impose upon Chrysler for a further period the curtailment of its freedom of action embodied in the consent decree. Relevant to its determination, also, was the fact that paragraph 12 provided *570only that, if the Government did not obtain a final order of divorcement against General Motors by January 1, 1941, then nothing in the decree against Chrysler would prohibit the latter from affiliating with a finance company. Nothing in paragraph 12 gave, or even purported to give, Chrysler any immunity from the antitrust laws after January 1, 1941. Therefore, if the decree were not modified, it would not mean that the Government would be powerless to proceed against Chrysler if the latter resumed the activities forbidden by the decree. The Government would still be free to take any action it might have taken before Chrysler consented to the decree against it.
A court of equity is not just an umpire between two litigants. In a very special sense, the public interest is in its keeping as the conscience of the law. The circumstance that one of the parties is the Government does not in itself mean that the interest which it asserts defines and comprehends the public interest which the court must vindicate. A modification of a decree requested by the Government is not ipso facto a modification warranted by considerations which control equity. Regard for the proper administration of justice, which makes determinations depend upon proof and not upon unsupported assertions of one of the litigants, is a vital aspect of the public interest. The burden obviously rested upon the Government to show good cause for disregarding an express provision in a carefully framed decree, and extending to twice its original duration the period of restraint against Chrysler. So to enlarge the burden of the decree without any such showing by the Government is a one-sided restriction of Chrysler’s freedom of action, at least of its right to prove that the restricted action is innocent. Instead of exacting such proof from the Government, the District Court cast upon Chrysler the duty of showing that it would not be preju*571diced if the fetters remained after the period fixed by the decree. He who seeks relief from equity has the burden of showing that he is entitled to it. It is unfair to cast upon Chrysler the burden of proving that it would not be harmed if the Government got what it wanted. As a practical business matter, Chrysler is not standing on an abstract right to devise means of financing its sales simply because it is not ready today with arrangements for a financial corporation, and the war precludes them. Such arrangements cannot be devised overnight. It may well take a year to get them under way.
Considering, on the one hand, the drastic economic disadvantage to which Chrysler is put, in being subjected to the hazard of contempt proceedings if it takes any steps toward preparing for affiliation in the future, and, on the other hand, the failure of the Government to explain the apparent lack of diligence in prosecuting the proceedings against General Motors and to show that the modification was necessary to achieve the purposes of the consent decree, I am bound to conclude that the order of the District Court, unexplained by any opinion, was not within the proper limits of its discretion.
Me. Justice Reed joins in this dissent.

 The full text of Paragraph 12 is as follows:
“The Respondent Finance Company shall not pay to any automobile manufacturing company and the Manufacturer shall not obtain from any finance company any money or other thing of value as a bonus or commission on account of retail time sales paper acquired by the finance company from dealers of the Manufacturer. The Manufacturer shall not make any loan to or purchase the securities of Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company, and if it shall pay any money to Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company with *566the purpose or effect of inducing or enabling such finance company to offer to the dealers of the Manufacturer a lower finance charge than it would offer in the absence of such payment, it shall offer in writing to make, and if such offer is accepted it shall make, payment upon substantially similar bases, terms and conditions to every other finance company offering such lower finance charge; provided, however, that nothing in this paragraph contained shall be construed to prohibit the Manufacturer from acquiring notes, bonds, commercial paper, or other evidence of indebtedness of Respondent Finance Company or any other finance company in the open market.
“It is an express condition of this decree that notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraph of this paragraph 12 and of any other provisions of this decree, if an effective final order or decree not subject to further review shall not have been entered on or before January 1, 1941, requiring General Motors Corporation permanently to divest itself of all ownership and control of General Motors Acceptance Corporation and of all interest therein, then and in that event, nothing in this decree shall preclude the Manufacturer from acquiring and retaining ownership of and/or control over or interest in any finance company, or from dealing with such finance company and with the dealers in the manner provided in this decree or in any order of modification or suspension thereof entered pursuant to paragraph 12a. The Court, upon application of the respondents or any of them, will enter an order or decree to that effect at the foot of this decree, and the right of any respondent herein to make the application and to obtain such order or decree is expressly conceded and granted.”