Lockerty v. Phillips

319 U.S. 182 (1943)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Ps are established merchants owning valuable wholesale meat businesses, in the course of which they purchase meat from packers and sell it at wholesale to retail dealers. The Maximum Price Regulation No. 169, promulgated by the Price Administrator under the purported authority of § 2 (a) of the Emergency Price Control Act of 1942 fixed maximum wholesale prices for specified cuts of beef. Ps claimed that Phillips (D), Administrator, had failed to give due consideration to the various factors affecting the cost of production and distribution of meat in the industry as a whole; that D had failed to fix or regulate the price of livestock; that the conditions in the industry including the quantity of meat available to packers for distribution to wholesalers, the packers' expectation of profit, and the effect of these conditions upon the prices of meat sold by packers to wholesalers -- are such that Ps are and will be unable to obtain a supply of meat from packers which they can resell to retail dealers within the prices fixed by Regulation No. 169. Ps claimed that the regs would put them out of business which was in violation of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, and involves an unconstitutional delegation of legislative power to D. Ps claimed that D is threatening to prosecute them for each sale of meat at a price greater than that fixed by the Regulation and to subject them to the fine and imprisonment. Ps brought this suit in the district court for an injunction restraining D from the prosecution of pending and prospective criminal proceedings against appellants for violation of §§ 4 (a) and 205 (b) of the Act, and of Maximum Price Regulation No. 169. In view of the provisions of § 204 (d) the district court of three judges, 28 U. S. C. § 380a, dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction to entertain it. Ps appealed.