United States v. Morton Salt Co.

338 U.S. 632, 70 S. Ct. 357, 94 L. Ed. 2d 401, 94 L. Ed. 401, 1950 U.S. LEXIS 2600, 1950 Trade Cas. (CCH) 62,561
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedFebruary 6, 1950
DocketNO. 273
StatusPublished
Cited by1,057 cases

This text of 338 U.S. 632 (United States v. Morton Salt Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Morton Salt Co., 338 U.S. 632, 70 S. Ct. 357, 94 L. Ed. 2d 401, 94 L. Ed. 401, 1950 U.S. LEXIS 2600, 1950 Trade Cas. (CCH) 62,561 (1950).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Jackson

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is a controversy as to the power of the Federal Trade Commission to require corporations to file reports showing how they have complied with a decree of the Court of Appeals enforcing the Commission’s cease and desist order, in addition to those reports required by the decree itself.

*635 Proceedings under § 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act 1 culminated in a Commission order requiring respondents Morton Salt Company and International Salt Company, together with eighteen other salt producers *636 and a trade association, to cease and desist from stated practices in connection with the pricing, producing and marketing of salt. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the order with modifications and commanded compliance. 134 F. 2d 354. The decree directed that reports of the manner of compliance be filed with the Commission within ninety days, but it reserved jurisdiction “to enter such further orders herein from time to time as may become necessary effectively to enforce compliance in every respect with this decree and to prevent evasion thereof.” The decree expressly was “without prejudice to the right of the United States, as provided in Section 5 (1) of the Federal Trade Commission Act, to prosecute suits to recover civil penalties for violations of the said modified order to cease and desist hereby affirmed, and without prejudice to the right of the Federal Trade Commission to initiate contempt proceedings for violations of this decree.” The reports of compliance were subsequently filed and accepted, and there the matter appears to have rested for a little upwards of four years.

On September 2, 1947, the Commission ordered additional and highly particularized reports to show continuing compliance with the decree. This was done without application to the court, was not authorized by any provision of its decree, and is not provided for in § 5 of the statute under which the Commission’s original cease and desist order had issued. The new order recited that it was issued on the Commission’s own motion pursuant to its published Rule of Practice No. XXVI 2 and the authority granted by subsections (a) and (b) of § 6 of the Trade Commission Act. It ordered these and other parties restrained by the earlier decree to file within thirty days “additional reports showing in detail the *637 manner and form in which they have been, and are now, complying with said modified order to cease and desist and said decree.” It demanded of each producer a “complete statement” of the “prices, terms, and conditions of sale of salt, together with books or compilations of freight rates used in calculating delivered prices, price lists and price announcements distributed, published or employed in marketing salt from and after January 1, 1944.” From the Salt Producers Association it required information as to its activities and services. The Association and some of the producers reported satisfactorily. These two respondents did not. Instead, each informed the Commission in general terms that it had complied with the decree in the manner previously reported, but that it doubted the Commission’s jurisdiction to require further reports and declined to supply the particulars demanded. Neither asked any hearing or made objection to the scope of the order.

The Commission next gave respondents notices asserting their default and calling attention to penalties provided in § 10 of the Act. Neither respondent asked any hearing on the notice of default. These suits were then commenced in the name of the United States in District Court under §§ 9 and 10 of the Trade Commission Act, asking mandatory injunctions commanding respondents to report as directed, together with judgment against each for $100 per day while default continued. Respondents answered. Both sides moved for summary judgments. The court found no dispute as to material facts and dismissed the complaints for want of jurisdiction. 80 F. Supp. 419. The Court of Appeals, by divided vote, affirmed. 174 F. 2d 703. We granted certiorari, 338 U. S. 857, because the case involved issues of some importance to enforcement of the Act and of court decrees under it and under other Acts which provide similar methods to enforce orders of administrative bodies.

*638 The Government’s suits and the Commission’s order are challenged upon a variety of grounds, not all of which were considered by the Court of Appeals. They include contentions that (1) the order constitutes an interference with the decree and an invasion of the powers of the Court of Appeals; (2) the Commission’s Rule XXVI is ultra vires and violates the Federal Administrative Procedure Act, 60 Stat. 237, 5 U. S. C. §§ 1001 et seq.; (3) the procedure is unauthorized by those sections of the Act on which it is based; (4) it is novel and arbitrary and violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution. For reasons given, we reject each of these contentions.

I. Invasion of Court of Appeals Jurisdiction.

The respondents’ case and the decision below are rested heavily on this argument that the Commission is invading the province of the judiciary. The Court of Appeals held that the Commission’s order of September 2, 1947, represented an unauthorized attempt to enforce that court’s decree. It pointed out that the statute had made the court’s own jurisdiction of the proceeding “exclusive” and its own decree final. It considered that “every vestige of jurisdiction” over that subject was “firmly and exclusively lodged in [the] Court of Appeals.” It noted that it had required filing of only the original compliance reports, and that it had protected its jurisdiction by reserving power to enter further orders necessary to enforce compliance and prevent evasion. It thought that the effect of the Commission’s proceedings was to assert “such jurisdiction to reside elsewhere.”

It seems conceded, however, that some power or duty, independently of the decree, must still have resided in the Commission. 3 Certainly entry of the court decree did *639 not wholly relieve the Commission of responsibility for its enforcement. The decree recognized that. It left to the Commission the right and hence the responsibility “to initiate contempt proceedings for the violation of this decree.” This must have contemplated that the Commission could obtain accurate information from time to time on which to base a responsible conclusion that there was or was not cause for such a proceeding. The decree also required the original report showing the manner and form of each respondent’s compliance to be filed, not with the court but with the Commission. Presumably the Commission was expected to scrutinize it and, if insufficient on its face, to reject it and move the court to take notice of the default. And the duty likewise was left upon the Commission to move the court if any respondent made a false report.

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Bluebook (online)
338 U.S. 632, 70 S. Ct. 357, 94 L. Ed. 2d 401, 94 L. Ed. 401, 1950 U.S. LEXIS 2600, 1950 Trade Cas. (CCH) 62,561, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-morton-salt-co-scotus-1950.