Davies Warehouse Company v. Bowles/Dissent Douglas

by Robert H. Jackson

United States Supreme Court

321 U.S. 144

Davies Warehouse Company  v.  Bowles

 Argued: Nov. 18, 1943. --- Decided: Jan 31, 1944

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice MURPHY concur, dissenting.

I think the present decision places an unwarranted burden on those who are waging the present war against inflation. The Act exempts from federal price control the 'rates charged by any common carrier or other public utility.' § 302(c), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 942(c). The Administrator has accordingly granted exemptions to enterprises furnishing the public with gas, electricity, water, light, heat or power, and telephone and telegraph services. That group embraces those enterprises which together with common carriers were traditionally included in the category of a 'public utility'. It should not be expanded by interpretation to include the filigree variety with which we are now concerned.

The purpose of the Act is to provide an instrument for national control of the inflationary forces set loose by the war. The need for uniformity in the enforcement of the Act is acute-to avoid inequality in burden and sacrifice; to weigh the odds for success as heavily as possible on the side of the public interest. The other exemptions in the Act apply uniformly throughout the country-wages, insurance rates, theatre admissions, fees for professional services, and the like. If the 'public utility' exemption is confined to the traditional classes of utilities, substantial uniformity will be obtained as they are almost universally subject to rate regulation in the States. But under the view taken by the Court warehouses will be exempt in some States but not in others. The same will be true of wharves and docks, slaughter houses, public markets, cotton gins and what not. And even in the same State there will be exemptions for some warehouses but not for others. This dependence of exemptions on the vagaries of state law would be quite understandable if the federal act were designed to mesh with state control-federal control being interposed to take up where state regulation was impossible or ineffective, as in various types of public utility regulation. Then there would be a great need in view of our federal system to preserve as much local autonomy as possible. The same would also be true where only a partial overriding of state controls was necessary to reach the limited federal objective. But the war against inflation is a grim affair calling for quite different requirements. It cannot be waged along those traditional lines. The luxuries of peace-time arrangements do not always fit the exigencies of this was emergency. Nor do the state rate-regulations in question supplement the federal system. They override it. And standards which they prescribe are not the standards for price-fixing under the present Act. The conventional power to fix rates is governed by criteria quite different from those which control the Administrator's action. He is to fix those maximum prices which 'will be generally fair and equitable and will effectuate the purposes of this Act.' § 2(a), 50 U.S.C.A.Appendix § 902(a).

Every exception read into the Act creates another point of leakage, multiplies the task of enforcement, and creates a favored class of businesses. I would not read the Act with such a hostile eye. Where two interpretations are possible I would take the one which avoids those results. The choice between the 'letter' and the 'spirit' is an ancient one even in the law. See Radin, A Short Way With Statutes, 56 Harv.L.Rev. 388. In this case I think the wrong choice has been made.

Notes